


Compression

by NamelessDragon



Series: Bound in Oblivion [1]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Also Bucky Barnes getting worse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Aphasia, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky didn't sign up for this, Bucky hating it when he eventually DOES sign up for it, Everyone being generally stressed, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Loki (Marvel), I kind of broke Loki again guys whoops, I mean she should she's the smartest one there, Imprisonment, Injury, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Thor: The Dark World Compliant, POV Bucky Barnes, Panic Attacks, Post-Black Panther (2018), Post-Thor: The Dark World, Psychological Trauma, Shuri does what she wants, Suicidal Ideation, Whump, except for the prologue, handwavy use of magic, handwavy use of science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-08-25 05:40:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 102,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16655272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelessDragon/pseuds/NamelessDragon
Summary: Bucky's been in Wakanda a while, trying to keep his head down and learn to enjoy life again in the wake of the removal of Hydra's programming.Then one day he falls down a hole into a secret lab.Things don't get easier from there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So about two weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night with the formed idea for this fic pretty strong in my head. The endgame is Loki/Bucky, and while I'd hesitate to call it a slow burn, there are going to be a few hundred issues they have to work out before they reach that level.
> 
> Chapter 2 will probably be posted Monday, and then I will be doing once a week (Saturday) updates. If my writing slows, I may skip a week here or there to get more caught up (I'll warn in advance), but I have 6 chapters written and the general direction of the story mapped out.

He had been too slow to escape. They had him snared. 

The fear quickly coalesced into a mighty rage. He was hyper-aware of his own body. He felt every organ as it functioned, sensed the very marrow in his bones. The cells that composed him felt full to bursting with energy. 

His power howled for release, too large for the vessel that carried it, wrong beneath his skin. There was movement behind him and he lashed out angrily. A wave of heat wafted over him in the wake of his attack, his victim releasing a scream of agony that cut off as they perished.

His thoughts were a firestorm. _How_ dare _you. You cannot hold me!_

"Put them down! Quickly!"

Panicked shouts as another body was engulfed in green flame, reduced to ash in the blink of an eye. His blood sang in his veins as he waited for the next to draw in close.

"We need the prince!"

"No. I will not risk him."

There was a harsh vibration, a discomfort that bordered on pain against his skin. His magic rushed to destroy the source, to melt it down like everything else.

It met a wall.

"It's working. Push them closer!"

He roared, a tornado of power rushing from him in a destructive wave. The ground itself crumbled beneath him, his knees sinking into the dust.

The vibration grew stronger, and he felt his stomach claw at his throat. The air suddenly grew as thick as mud. It was getting harder to breathe. A terrible pressure began in his head.

Forms closing in and his magic could not harm them and _how, how is this possible-_

"Steady. Nearer. Do not rush!"

The air became tight and solid. He could not move. The gust of magic he expelled was forcibly pushed back to its source, locked inside his body.

"Now the rest!"

Something thick began to creep up his legs, over his stomach and higher, sealing tight against his body. He could not struggle against it.

 _No. I will - I will_ kill _every last one of you, I will make your very_ blood _boil in your veins, I-_

It had reached his neck. 

He could not even open his mouth to scream as it covered his face, enclosing him in darkness.

\----------

**5 Years Later**

Bucky held the sack he'd been about to throw tight in his fist and gave a long-suffering look to the black and white goat that stood proudly on the flat wooden surface of the cart he had been loading. 

"Really?" he asked in disapproval. "What happened to using your new house?"

A few weeks back the Tribe had responded enthusiastically to Bucky's - hesitant - suggestion that they build the animals new shelters. Said shelters had been installed with ramps and platforms with the very specific purpose of giving the goats a place they could stand and climb. Even though the animals used the new structures with enthusiasm, sometimes they still decided that what he was doing was more interesting.

Goats. They did what they wanted.

At least his current opponent wasn't the biggest in the herd. Bucky had kept his enhanced strength up with farm work, but carrying a two hundred pound unwieldy dead weight with only one arm while trying to be gentle with it still wasn't a picnic. Thank god the cows didn't act like this.

"If I have to pick you up, you're not gonna like it," Bucky warned.

The doe looked at him and bleated. He heard kids - the human kind - giggling nearby.

Bucky sighed, then approached the goat and braced her against his body with his arm, hefting her from the cart. She went perfectly still, even as Bucky fumbled for a better balance of her furred bulky body across his forearm. Once he was sure she was secured, he carefully crouched to give her a light descent. The goat immediately folded her legs beneath herself as she met the ground, nearly toppling onto her side before he moved his hand to steady her. He patted the dirt and dried grass from her fur before he got to his feet.

"Don't do that again," he said, as if the goat could understand. As if he wouldn't just put up with her again the next time.

He'd gladly take goats over any of the other problems he'd had in the last seventy years. He'd take a thousand goats.

He turned back to his sacks and heard the distant stifled giggling again. He straightened, resigned, and turned back to the cart to see the doe had reclaimed her spot. 

Right, so he couldn't even take _one_ goat. At least the kids were entertained.

He finished up the rest of his chores, occasionally defending his cart, and then called out to the kids in Xhosa to let them know that he was leaving for a walk. They giggled again, this time at his accent, even though it sounded fine to his ears and he knew from Shuri that he was actually doing pretty well with it. 

She was the last person who would bullshit him about a fact like that. Unless she was doing it so she could make fun of him later, but from what he'd seen, she wasn't much for delayed gratification when it came to her pranks. Or, as she sometimes called it, "trolling." 

Bucky could wrap his head around the behavior. He and Steve had done just as much, growing up together. But the logic behind the terminology was sometimes still baffling. 

He packed himself a lunch - a large bag of fruit and a few pounds of dried, preserved meat - and headed out.

\-----------

Every day, he thought that maybe things were getting a little easier. A big part of that had to do with living in Wakanda, and he thanked whatever powers were watching that he'd been lucky enough to end up in such a paradise. The people were happy for his help, but did not require it. Life here could be as simple or as complicated as he needed it to be.

Early on after Hydra's programming had been removed, simple had been best. Learning the culture, meeting new people and absorbing new information had been nice, but nothing had relaxed him as much as menial labor. He'd tried to do what he could to work up a sweat every single day, lifting heavy loads, feeling the soreness in his muscles from hours of work soothe the tension in his mind. He ran laps around the edge of the river, kept his focus on the scenery, the kids who tried to keep up with his running in intervals, endlessly fascinated by his presence. It was so unlike anything he'd experienced before in his too-long life, which meant it helped to minimize the stretches of negative associations that could be stirred out of his memories. It kept away the thoughts that could stop his brain in its tracks and make him forget how to breathe.

Months later, as he began to settle in, to begin to believe in the fact that just maybe this whole Wakanda thing was permanent and they weren't about to throw him out on his ass at any moment (for which he wouldn't have blamed them), he began to grow bolder. He attempted to at least a few times a week take a trip from the farms to visit Shuri at Mount Bashenga.

Shuri's mind was incredible. The way her brain worked it seemed the ideas just teleported into existence from nothing. She had a constant driven enthusiasm for her work bubbling under the surface. At first he'd been cautious about interrupting her when she was really into her designs, but she'd assured him that she worked well with someone as a sounding board. 

She actually didn't, was the thing - still a teenager under all that brain, she was easily distracted. She liked to have fun. But most of the time, her work was not on a time limit, and when she was focused she invented new technologies so fast it made his head spin. It was amazing. _She_ was amazing.

Now she was even actively doing more work to help others out in the rest of the world. A youth outreach program. Bucky'd felt a swell of pride when she told him.

She'd been very vocal about the progress of the work done on building where she would teach, so when she came to visit him to announce that she would be gone for a few weeks, he wasn't surprised.

"Here." She'd wrapped a bracelet of beads around his wrist. "I will be carrying Remote Access Kimoyo Beads, so you can still contact me. I designed yours so you can operate them one-handed. If you need _anything_..."

"I can ask the Elders," he'd tried, still uncomfortable with this type of attention. She was a _princess_ , she had better things to do than worry about him so often. The Elders did, too, but she didn't need to know he thought that.

"Hey. I see you giving that look again," she'd admonished, then tapped his beads with her finger. "I set these on a private line, otherwise Okoye would be calling you every ten minutes. I am good at multitasking, Bucky - don't hesitate to tell me if something is wrong."

He'd reluctantly agreed, and thanked her in genuine gratefulness. He didn't want to need it, but it was nice to have the lifeline. After Hydra, after living alone in hiding, his capabilities of accepting help and accepting that people wanted to help were a little skewed. 

To fill in the gap that her absence had made, he took to exploring Wakanda alone. He'd asked for permission first, of course, and instead of turning him down not only did most of the Elders immediately agree, they had offered him a horse. He'd declined, not bothering to point out that he could cover a lot more ground a lot faster compared to a horse, even one of healthy Wakandan breeding. Besides, he preferred to be on foot. 

He avoided the cities, and remained mindful of the stretches of each Tribe's territory, keeping well away from the mountains where the Jabari resided. He spent hours hiking, jogging, climbing rocks, simultaneously soothing and strengthening the muscles that surrounded a spine that even now wasn't exactly a hundred percent after getting forcibly saddled for years with the intrusion of a metal arm. Shuri had a standing offer for surgery to help, but he wasn't mentally prepared to let her cut him open just yet. 

Sometimes when he would rest, find a hill to relax on and refuel his body and just take in the view, and he would see a glint of red in the distance. If there was an airship nearby, he could be fairly sure that it was General Okoye, or one of the other Dora checking up on him. Even now, the general didn't completely trust him. And she wanted him to know it.

But that was good, he thought, that they still watched him. That was better. It comforted him in the moments where his mind flailed and became irrationally sure that he was not cured, that the phrases to control him were still in there, waiting to be uncovered.

It would have been even better still if he could turn it off. The trigger words were gone, but the instincts were still there. So were the habits, the constant analyzation of each situation. He knew his ease with grasping Xhosa had been from his single-minded focus when presented with the assignment. Hydra had drilled every useful language they could think of into his head. The learning sequence wasn't new.

Out and about he didn't have to worry about speaking to people and risk exhuming those lingering feelings of guilt and shame. When he was in the open wilds he didn't have to worry about checking for exits. When he was alone he didn't have to keep himself tensed for an imagined attack, either from himself or others. When he walked, or ran, there was no responsibility, no task to complete. No mission.

It really was, he thought, a little easier.

\----------

Bucky ran, and sweated, and kept running. His body had become used to his long jaunts, making it so he had to go farther, faster, before he would reach the same level of tired contentment that he sought. He'd mapped out the stretches of land in his head, and they were more easy to navigate now that he was more familiar with them. He even kept in mind where the predators roamed, big cats with their own sets of territories, and tried to leave them in peace. The Kimoyo Beads had a function that Shuri had designed to repel attacking animals, but Bucky wanted to avoid using it if at all possible. It wouldn't be fair to them, if he invaded their space and then punished them for just reacting.

He'd reached the beginning of the rock-work that would lead into Warrior Falls when the sun reached its highest point. There was a nice patch of shade beneath a nearby tree, and he settled down for a break, ignoring the purple plume grass that tickled his bared skin. He re-hydrated with fruit and water, and took large bites of dried meat and thought of the kids back at the farm that usually stared and murmured among themselves in awe at the amount of food he could put away in one sitting. After he was done, he let his eyes fall shut, let himself be still for a few moments to enjoy the tingle of well worked muscles, the roaring rush of waterfalls that sounded in the distance, and the land's lush earthy scent.

It wasn't long before his mind pushed at him again, warning him with a niggling anxiety that if he didn't become active again soon he was going to regret it. He opened his eyes and examined his possible paths. There was a border to Wakanda a couple hours westward from his position. He could continue his run in that direction, or start heading back to the farm so he would be indoors before the mosquitoes started eating him alive. 

But then he caught something funny with the rock wall nearby. He squinted, wondering if he was imagining it. He thought he could see a sort of outline, where a patch of the rock stood fresher-looking than the area around it. He would have thought nothing of it were it not for the fact that the form it took was a perfect square.

 _"These sorts of shapes do not tend to naturally occur,"_ Shuri had told him once while showing him the way that even the Wakandans who took to a simpler living integrated technology with their daily lives. _"If you see it, there is probably a hidden working in place."_

Even knowing that, the sight of one of these things still made the back of Bucky's neck prickle. Echoes of Hydra's secret bases invaded his thoughts, souring his good mood from his run. He sighed and scanned his surroundings to check if anyone was around, if he was being trailed by any airships. 

_It's nothing,_ he tried to tell himself, getting more annoyed by the second at his paranoia. _Just relax._ Shuri had explained to him that Warrior Falls had some technological set-up so it could be altered for use in Wakandan ritual combat. That must have been what he was seeing. 

Climbing onto his feet and brushing the dirt from his pants, he approached the rock-work. Even the grass on the ground in front of it was different, wilder and taller and more condensed than the neighboring blades. The square on the rock itself wasn't large enough for a human to enter, and its position was too high on the wall to be a door. It had to be just another of his constant unfounded suspicions that signaled a danger.

He clenched his jaw and touched the rock, traced the square with the pads of his fingers. _See?_ he thought, as he let out a shuddering breath. _It's fine. It just has something to do with all the machinery beneath the ground._

One of his Kimoyo Beads lit up with a blue light. He went utterly still. There was a great groaning noise.

Jerking his hand back from the wall, Bucky backed away as the rock crumbled at the edges of the square, revealing a larger seam. The earth beneath his feet vibrated. He moved away faster, his eyes locked onto the rock as it sank a few inches into the wall it had once been level against.

Then he took another step, and found that there was no ground beneath his feet. His stomach jolted up into his throat as he fell with a cry. Instinctively, he twisted in the air, placing his metal arm between himself and the oncoming ground for protection and only belatedly remembering - _you have no metal arm, idiot!_

He hit the ground, his shoulder and ribs and the side of his head taking the brunt of the impact. The air exploded from his lungs in a pained grunt, spots weaving into his vision before he clamped his eyes shut as the secondary wave of hurt raced through his nerves. He was distantly aware of lights automatically turning on, of the mechanical whirring as machinery started.

Bucky kept still, dazed as he recovered, trying to catalogue the damage before he moved and made it worse. His ribs were okay, but his spine was definitely informing him that a fall from that height without the arm to cushion it was pushing the limits.

 _You're a fucking dumbass,_ he thought at himself before he carefully moved his head up to take in his surroundings.

It was a laboratory.

His instincts noticed before his thoughts did. It wasn't like Shuri's, with the ( _safety, calm_ ) minimalism and white surfaces and colorful murals. It was all impersonal metal, thick and unbreakable vibranium making up the walls, the floor, the ceiling.

The computers - honest to god _desktops_ \- powered on, working, the wide screens connected to them taking up most of an entire wall as they relayed information. A three dimensional model of the lab was displayed on the far right screen, noting specifically its integrity and the integrity of the land that surrounded it. ( _They were preparing for an attack, a missile - something._ ) And on the screen beside that was a virtual model, unspecified in its origins but distinctly more human-shaped. It was set in the outline of a cubic border.

Bucky moved to his feet, his eyes carefully darting to every corner of the lab for ( _threats_ ) people as he advanced to the computers to get a better look. There was - not a room, exactly, but some sort of a ( _prison? coffin?_ ) container within one of the walls. 

The human shape was inside it.

Swallowing hard, but thinking - _it's probably nothing, maybe this was just a place they buried someone, maybe it's another Black Panther habit they were working on before they moved labs_ \- Bucky moved his Kimoyo Beads up to the screen.

Boy would he have loved for General Okoye to drop in on him about now and tell him he was poking around where he wasn't allowed. Because he knew that without interference, he wasn't going to leave ( _what if you're trapped here, what if you_ can't _leave,_ ) until he had satisfied his curiosity about what exactly this was. 

It took a few tries - he was adept at learning new technologies, but Kimoyo Beads were still a bit new to him. Eventually, to a combined start of accomplishment and pure nerves, he found the command that opened the container. 

Vibranium withdrew, revealing a compartment lined with bright blue lights that emitted a constant hum. He frowned as he tried to process what he was seeing. Dozens of long, thin bars protruded from the walls at every angle, like a large spider had tried its hand at three dimensional web-building using metal as its material. Each one conjoined in the center around what at first looked like a formless shape of dark silver, but the longer Bucky took it in, the more he felt his anxiety grow. 

"What the hell is that," he muttered, needing something to break the silence of the laboratory.

 _There's an answer on the wall._ His eyes darted to the computer's display, then back to the center of the cube. His mind told him that the similarities between what the computer was showing him and what he was seeing held just feet from him were too great to ignore. There would be no reason for them to store a Black Panther habit like this. ( _Is it some kind of Wakandan execution? A ritual burial?_ )

He moved back to the computer, unwilling to touch whatever it was before he could find out more. But while the first step of uncovering it had been simple, he soon found that there were locks and passwords in place required to do anything more than that. He tried anyway, unveiling lines of code, his mind hissing - _what are you doing, this is none of your business, what if this is dangerous, what if someone finds you down here trying to hack into Wakandan national secrets and they lock you up -_ and god, how he wanted to ignore the subtle edge of soothing to that last thought.

He kept telling himself that his next attempt at breaking through would be his last, and then he would finally smarten up and just leave well enough alone. Head back to the farm.

And then he told himself that again about a hundred more times.

 _Okay,_ he thought after he wasted nearly half an hour trying unsuccessfully to access the system. _That's it, Barnes. Now is the time to get your head out of your ass._ Wakandan cryostasis hadn't looked that much different from Hydra's, at the end of it all. This wasn't that. This was something different. _But why would this be out here unmanned in the middle of nowhere?_

He needed to stop. He needed to get back to the farm. He had chores in the morning. He didn't care if he was under no obligation to do them. He wanted to earn his keep and get better and that did not involve _breaking into the computers of a secret Wakandan lab - these people helped you, you asshole._

But there was no way in hell he was leaving without telling someone.

He pulled up his Kimoyo Beads and called Shuri. 

It took a few rings and then she was there, her eyes puffy with sleep. It would be the middle of the night in California. Her image wavered like static before it cleared, adding another sense of wrongness to the situation. Her completed tech never functioned like this.

"Uh, Shuri?" he said before she could speak. His gaze flicked back to the cube. "Something is wrong."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be posted next Saturday (the 1st), and we are now moving to once a week-only updates. I'm experiencing some technical difficulties of the "forest animals chewing up my internet service wires" variety. I currently have no internet at my house, so keep an eye on my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/anamelessdragon) if you'd like to be kept up to date on whether or not I'll have to alter my posting schedule.

"What? Where are you?" Bucky could already see Shuri messing with something off of the Kimoyo display, and heard the quick typing of a keyboard. "Ugh, this technology is so _slow._ How do people live like this?"

"I fell into some sort of lab," he said, a new rush of guilt at his trespass wafting over him all over again.

The typing stopped. She gave him a dumbfounded look. "You... _fell_. Into a lab."

He tightened his lips and nodded. _So far it's turning out a little better than the last five hundred falls,_ he didn't say. "The beads you gave me opened a hole in the ground." His back was still reverberating in sharp twinges of pain signals from the incorrect landing.

"Is that why you sound like you're underwater?" The typing began again, faster than before. "Where?"

"I'm not sure." He shut his eyes and mapped out the path of his run, happy to have something to focus on besides metal walls towering over him. "North of the Falls, west of the River Tribe."

She stared at him like he had just told her he'd spontaneously regrown a second arm. "We have no records of there ever being any research divisions in that area."

"Oh. Good." He swallowed as the claustrophobic feeling came back with a vengeance. "So I'm just hallucinating."

Shuri cursed in Xhosa. "Hang on." More typing, her eyes narrowing in frustration the longer she was silent. "There's a skip in the vibranium in the ground in that area, but I cannot find any more information. The only reason I can see it now is because I used the signals in your Kimoyo Beads to find you - but even those are intermittent. Something is interfering with the technology."

His voice sounded weak in his ears. "Yeah. I think I found the something."

Her expression showed mostly worry, but her eyes were curious. "Show me."

Bucky aimed his beads at the cube and watched as they scanned the shape inside. He couldn't keep his own eyes on it for longer than a few seconds.

Shuri's eyes widened. "I can see the outline, but the Kimoyo Beads are not giving me a clear image." She gave him a direct look. "Can you get out of there?"

He glanced back at the ground beneath the hole he'd fallen through and saw something that looked distinctly like a Wakandan-designed platform elevator. _Would have been great if that had been at the top when this thing opened,_ he thought with a hint of bitterness. "I think so."

Shuri relaxed with an audible sigh. "Good. Get out, and close everything back up. Do not tell anyone what you have found. I will head back home immediately."

\-----------

The run back to the farm went faster on the return trip. Bucky had been grateful to the point of quaking when the elevator had brought him back up, and the ground once more sealed its secrets from sight.

For those first few miles, he all but sprinted in his haste to get away. He tried to take comfort in the wilds but his mind spun in absurd circles of rationalizations and paranoia, and more than once he startled skittish herds of herbivores as he nearly crashed into them on his travel back. 

There was probably nothing in the laboratory worth worrying over - the feeling of creeping horror had only been his own anxious, damaged head. It was just animal instincts - the fact that the metal shapes had resembled something humanoid, but slightly off and weird, stirring up his overactive lizard brain. 

When the farm was in sight, he felt a familiar relief. One of his neighbors, a young mother named Anwuli, was there to greet him with dinner. Her face was streaked with stripes of white paint, as were her bared arms, and she wore a necklace of shells and a green and gold top. She waited patiently outside his hut while he changed his clothes, slow between his spine protesting and the awkward one-armed movements required for him to remove and replace them. When he was done, she helped him tie a new sash in place over his damaged shoulder, the color a rich pattern of brown and blue.

He accepted the food, and tried to not let on that his mind was in the middle of a vicious battle between being too nauseous to be really hungry and his thoughts yelling at him to eat and eat well, because he needed to be in peak performance when danger came for him.

"You are back later than usual," she observed.

"Yeah," he answered, listlessly poking at his bowl of bean and plantain pottage. They were sitting on the ground beside each other outside his hut. His sweat was still cooling against his skin.

"I saw you headed west," Anwuli said. "Did you see the caracal pair today?"

She liked to hear his reports of the wildlife he saw when he covered a lot of ground. While normally Bucky was glad to engage with her, this time he lacked the memory or desire. He didn't want to dig back into what had lead him to that lab. He shook his head. "No."

"That's too bad. Hey!" Anwuli's sudden shout made Bucky tighten his hold on his spoon. His latent instincts spurred up, ready for violent defense. But Anwuli just yelled again, this time off to the side in Xhosa. Bucky followed her gaze to see a group of girls frozen around the goat he'd been at odds with earlier in the day. Anwuli's daughter was among them. They had their hands on the doe's rump and thighs, trying to push her in his direction.

Anwuli shook her head and yelled again, and the girls retreated, pulling the goat back to the field. "They've been saying the goat misses you."

Bucky forced himself to relax, glad that Anwuli had been too distracted to notice the way he'd seized from the sudden noise. And more than glad that he didn't have a metal arm anymore that he would have to worry about enhancing his ability to follow through on that violence. "She doesn't miss me. She just wants food. And to stand on my cart."

"The animals know more about us than you think," Anwuli said. "They like it when you smile. That is why they are always interrupting your work."

 _Then they'll definitely stay away from me now._ Bucky took a few bites of his food to give himself a break from the conversation.

She wasn't fooled. "Are you okay?" 

He resisted the urge to sigh. Anwuli was either oblivious or just plain didn't care about his obvious mood change and the signals of withdrawal he knew he was practically blaring out. Not that he wanted the people here to feel intimidated around him, but... 

He swallowed with effort. "Just tired," Bucky lied. He felt like he was letting her down by allowing his issues to start overtaking him. He'd been getting _better_. Nothing had even happened to him, besides the fall. The lab was empty, abandoned - _Wakandan._ The architecture and every piece of technology in there had been designed for defense and not attack.

Anwuli patted his shoulder, drawing him out of his thoughts. "I'll ask again tomorrow." She got to her feet.

As she walked away, Bucky felt a heavy surge of guilt. "Thanks for dinner," he called.

"You are welcome," she answered. "Maybe you can help me with it tomorrow. I am making pounded yam."

He'd make the effort, he promised himself. He couldn't let the discovery of that lab start to break apart what he'd built here.

Later, in bed in his hut, he didn't sleep for a long time. He stared at the walls in quiet anxiety and listened to the sounds of nocturnal animals ebb and flow through the night air. A jackal screamed somewhere in the distance. 

Where before he'd felt safe, now he was beginning to feel closed in.

At some point before dawn he managed to drift off. The nightmares featuring Hydra weren't unexpected.

Neither was Shuri showing up at his hut first thing in the morning. She came fully prepared and full of purpose, already wearing an orange lab dress with her hair tied tightly back above her head. Her eyes were focused and interested enough to cancel out the jet lag. She handed him a thermos full of oats and coconut.

"Take me to it," she demanded.

\----------

Aboard her airship and looking at her sand table, Bucky could see now what she'd been saying about the technology being interfered with. Even when they were directly above the area where he was sure the ground had opened up, she couldn't make the sand reveal the lab underneath. There were sporadic grooves where the hole for the elevator would be, but no actual representation of the elevator shaft. It was unnerving.

They landed, and she had him show her the process he had gone through to open the entrance. When the surface of the earth rumbled, he forced himself to stay put, and could see now that there was plenty of distance between the hole that opened and the rock wall that triggered it. A normal ( _calm_ ) person would have had time to see the obvious splitting of the ground, the circle large enough to comfortably fit forty people. He'd backed away a lot farther and faster than he had remembered.

Shuri had obviously thought the same thing. "This is the hole you fell into?"

He shrugged, unwilling to divulge why. 

She examined the wall. "There's a second panel here," she said, and hovered her beads over it. "That should summon the elevator."

It did. The platform below rose and became flush with the ground. Bucky moved through his nervousness and followed Shuri onto it. They were lowered down, bright cylindrical lights turning on all around them as the entrance sealed shut over their heads. He felt like there was a ball of lead in his stomach crushing his diaphragm as they reached lab level.

Bucky's trepidation only grew when he noted that the container within the wall was once again behind a smooth panel of vibranium, hiding the contents. This entire experience was an extremely stressful exercise in him trying to figure out if his mind had been playing tricks on him the first time he'd encountered this place, and not being happy when his perceived nightmares were repeatedly confirmed. 

Shuri was at the computer, staring up at the large display on the wall. "It is password protected," she said. "The computer hardware was imported and altered, but the software is Wakandan. It is very out of date. We haven't used this programming since years before I took over the Design Group."

Bucky moved closer to watch her attempt to break into the system. "Your father never mentioned it?"

She shook her head. "No. But you are right. There is something here."

Bucky straightened as Shuri found the command to open the container in the wall. The vibranium door withdrew, revealing that the dark silver shape was still inside, held between the beams in the wall. Shuri approached it and crouched, examining the contents with a critical eye and showed none of the nervousness that Bucky felt blare back to life in his own body. His muscles nearly cramped in agitation when she reached inside to touch one of the lights that bordered the wall. Her forehead creased into a frown and she drew up her Kimoyo Beads to perform a scan on them. She gasped.

Bucky drew forward, ready to pull her back from danger. "What is it?"

"Contained? I do not know," Shuri said. "But these," she pointed to the lights, "are _my_ design."

Bucky stepped out of her way as she raced back to the computer. He frowned. "But you said you didn't even know this was here."

"I did not build them. I only _designed_ them." She typed quickly, more animated now that she really had a focus. "It was a test. When I was thirteen, my father gave me a time limit and asked me to design a system to negate a proposed vibranium-formed energy field without harming the stability of raw vibranium. The idea became the precursor to my sonic stabilizers. When I was successful, he allowed me to officially join the Wakandan Design Group. I thought it was just _theoretical._ "

"But he used it for something," Bucky concluded.

Shuri nodded unhappily. "Yes. That is why our technology cannot locate this place, and why the programming and equipment here is so old. That was why the reception when you called me was so terrible. The energy from the vibranium in our normal tech is disrupted."

And whatever was in that cube was the energy source that had to be negated. Bucky liked the look of this less and less. 

"The amount they used..." She turned and looked at Bucky. "For most of our vibranium tech, even our weapons, one or two of those devices would have been sufficient to control a large radius of energy."

Bucky looked at the dozens of lights that lined the container.

"That many," Shuri continued, "aimed at an object at that level of concentration, would be enough to suppress the blast from a vibranium-powered bomb."

 _Just what I wanted to be trapped with in a metal box underground._ "Glad I didn't find a way to mess with it," he said.

Shuri raised her hands from the computer in triumph. "Ah! Finally. I can remove the nanites." She moved her hands over the display, pointing out the box of coding she'd opened up so Bucky could follow her process. Normally he would appreciate her trying to include him, but right now all he was thinking about was how much he wanted to be back out in the sun and fresh air - out of this hellhole and _very much_ away from the thing in the wall. 

After entering a few lines of code, Shuri grinned in sudden eagerness. "Let's see what's inside."

 _Let's not,_ Bucky thought, even as a sort of placid alertness blanketed him. Now he'd finally have a real risk to face. It was the anticipation and intangibility of the dangers here that stressed him out the most.

"Bucky," Shuri said. He turned to see her staring at him with her eyebrows raised. She nodded at him, and he belatedly noticed he'd placed himself between her and the cube. "It will be quite safe. The nanites would not be there for containment. They are meant to keep _us_ out."

 _And you don't think there's a good reason for that?_ He kept his doubts to himself. Shuri knew what she was doing, a hell of a lot more than he did. He clenched his fist and took a step away to give her a clear view.

She gave him a small smile. "Now watch out for the acid spray."

Bucky jerked back in alarm before Shuri's laugh registered. He relaxed with a huff of fond exasperation. "Sure," he said. "Scare the old guy."

"You are so easy sometimes," she said, and then her laughter faded as her gaze narrowed in interest at the cube behind him.

Bucky turned around in time to see the silver form begin to crumble. Or, that's what he at first thought he was seeing, before he realized the coloring was really just the outside layer. It sloughed off like dead skin, the amorphous shape becoming something more recognizable the more the inside was revealed. Fear made his hackles rise, and for the first time in a while, he _almost_ wished he had his prosthetic arm. And a gun.

Because there was a man in the container. 

Shuri began to frantically move through information in the display, her good humor and interest dissolving. "That's - that's _not possible!_ "

Whatever else she said faded into the background as Bucky felt his gaze sink further, the room around him disappearing as he took in the details before him. Black hair, pale skin, a thin green-toned tunic and torn pants. The tunic was tattered and burnt, a hole ripped down the front of the torso to reveal a fresh-looking scar, ragged and blackened at the edges. The thin bars coming from the walls of the cube were metal restraints, hoops of varying sizes at their ends that locked over the torso, neck, and limbs in multiple places. They forced the man's arms and legs to fold in close, arms behind his back and legs bent beneath him. _Dangerous_ , Bucky's thoughts supplied. _Her father went through a lot of trouble to keep you locked up tight down here._

The man's body was as still as a statue, eyes open and staring forward, face frozen in a look of horrified rage.

Shuri growled behind him. "I cannot access the information files. I can develop a program to bypass the passwords, but I'll need to return to my lab for equipment." She went quiet for a few seconds, and then a soft gasp left her. "Fuck! Shit!"

"What is it?" Bucky asked, finally able to break his eyes away. There was a new image on one of the screens, a set of lines that moved in curving slopes. He recognized them for what they were just as Shuri answered.

"There's beta wave activity," she said, voice high and strained. "It is slow, but...that, that _man_ is alive. He is awake."


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky felt nauseous. It _was_ some sort of a stasis chamber after all. _God._

( _"Put him on ice."_ )

The man's pale blue eyes were still locked in a fixed position, his face tight with anger. 

Bucky wondered if that was how he had looked, when Hydra froze him in their cryochambers. 

_Why would the Wakandans do this?_ he thought, heart pounding. _Who the hell are you? What did you do?_

Shuri cursed again. "Come on," she said, grabbing Bucky's arm. "I cannot do anything here. Not now. We have to tell T'Challa-" She paused, her expression softening in realization as she looked at him. "You do not want to leave."

Bucky stared at her, and didn't tell her how wrong she was. He _did_ want to leave, needed to be out of this underground metal chamber and on living earth again. He wanted to be away from everything that reminded him of why deep down he'd never be anything more than an unstable man who'd murdered people for the wrong side - Steve and Shuri and T'Challa's opinions of him and his strength and his morals be damned.

But five years ago she'd designed that equipment. It had been intended for something very specific, a request from her father. On a time limit. Which meant that they must have not waited long to put it to use.

Five years in which this person had been trapped. He swallowed. "You said he was awake."

Shuri stared back with fresh despair and guilt in her eyes. She pointed beneath the display of brain waves, to some other data being tracked. "That will show any evoked cortical responses. He is hearing us, even if he cannot respond." She patted his arm. "Stay. I will be back as soon as I can."

She ran to the elevator, and he forced himself not to follow her, all the while thinking - _it's not too late to change your mind, you can still go, she could probably use the help._

He heard the ceiling seal in, heard her airship take off. 

He was staying.

He turned back to face the compartment, ignoring his crawling skin. The man was still there, sunken eyes still staring forward, angular body still in the grip of metal. The scarring on his chest was horrendous, enhancing his already cadaverous appearance. Bucky would have thought it was caused by a blade or a botched surgery, from the size and shape. But the way the edges of the scarring fanned out and leeched into the skin around it, that looked almost like chemical burns. Caused by the Wakandans? Or a pre-existing injury?

Bucky wondered what it would be like to be trapped frozen for years, unable to move, and _awake_. The man wasn't breathing, even if he was conscious. How was he even still alive?

He found a chair and pulled it over, carefully, so it did not make much noise. He'd always been hyper-sensitive to stimuli after being brought out of cryo. He knew that it made the wipes after freezing a particular kind of hellish, now that he could sort through and compare those experiences. He felt like whatever this nasty version of stasis was, that fact would remain the same.

He sat with his hand between his knees, and ignored the protest in his spine at the poor posture. "Hi," he said softly, feeling awkward. "I'm, uh...Bucky."

No physical response, but why the hell would he even expect that. Bucky glanced at the brain waves, and he thought maybe they'd changed, gotten a little faster. "Don't even know if you speak English," he said, eyes tracking the frequency. 

He tried a few sentences in Xhosa. The lines spiked. Bucky went quiet as the waves grew tighter, a memory stirring in the back of his mind.

He'd seen that kind of reaction before.

( _"Wipe him."_ )

He felt his eyes flutter shut. He breathed out deeply through his mouth. "So, English is better," he said, turning back to the frozen man. "Makes sense. You're obviously not from Wakanda. You must've done something pretty bad, to end up here." Bucky swallowed as he took in the restraints, the hum of the lights, and the absolute unending stillness of the man's body. "Pretty sure no one deserves this, though."

He went quiet. What was he supposed to say? He figured it would be bad to describe anything in regards to his history, or the history of Wakanda, especially if this man was some sort of criminal. He knew some stories, remembered pieces of his life from before, but there were still small holes in his brain, and he didn't usually realize they were there until he tripped over them. He could talk about Steve, but...that part of his heart he didn't feel like baring to a total stranger.

He thought of the farm, and the goats and Anwuli and the kids. _Good enough,_ he reasoned. It wouldn't exactly be Tolkien, but this guy wouldn't have had much to compare it to, stuck down here alone, trapped in a tiny box.

Bucky shuddered. He took a breath, and began to talk.

\----------

It was just under two hours before Shuri's airship returned. Bucky heard the muffled noises of her berating someone even before the entrance to the lab reopened above. As the elevator came down, her words became clearer and louder, and he winced in sympathy as the frozen man's brain waves jumped frenetically again. _Definitely sound-sensitive._

"Ah, watch it! You're going to drop them."

T'Challa's voice answered, edged with exasperation. "For Bast's sake! You know, you could have just had the other scientists in the Design Group help you with this."

"I told you, I did not want them to know about it yet."

"Yes, and you still haven't told me exactly what it is...we..." T'Challa trailed off as the elevator came to a stop at lab level. 

Bucky moved to his feet, creating an unbridled view of the man in the wall. T'Challa scanned the room, his brow furrowed. "I thought you were making up stories so you could try and upload another video of one of your pranks. What is this place?"

"That is what we are trying to find out using the equipment that you are _crushing in your hands!_ " Shuri ripped a device made mostly of glass from T'Challa's arms, taking her frantic energy to the far side of the room. Bucky stepped over to T'Challa and offered to take some of the devices, happy to have something to focus on through the stress. Shuri instructed them to place the objects, palm-sized and shaped like bisected spheres, in an arch around the frozen man's knees. The spheres lit up on the ground and a new image popped up on the screens - an outline of the kneeling body that showed a shimmering set of lines traveling through it in thin, branching paths.

Bucky frowned. That wasn't the circulatory or nervous system. 

T'Challa joined his sister in reading the displays. "You know who this man is," he said, voice quiet with warning. It wasn't a question.

"Yes, and I don't care," she snapped back. 

Bucky suddenly felt like he was missing something. "You know why he's here?" he asked, once again on high alert, ready to move from "that poor bastard" to "that absolute bastard" with a word. He almost hoped for it. Maybe it would calm the constant nausea.

"No," Shuri said abruptly. "It's not that. He's..."

"He is an alien terrorist," T'Challa finished, turning to face Bucky as he spoke. "They called him Loki. Six years ago he brought an army to attack New York in America."

Shuri spoke with an undercurrent of anger. "Yes, but he was defeated by the Avengers and then taken away. Wakanda was not involved."

Bucky remembered, in flashes of knowledge. Hydra defrosting him and watching the events carefully, keeping him prepared for deployment but ultimately not getting their Winter Soldier entangled in the situation. He remembered the army, weird aliens, lead by man with a horned helmet and green and black and gold armor. He'd even researched the event soon after he'd escaped, but it had been drowned in a constant influx of new information and new autonomy and a boatload of migraine headaches as his brain got used to not being constantly fried to shit to interrupt its healing process.

Still, he remembered the orchestrator. The army's leader.

Bucky looked to the frozen man with new wariness. _"The power of a vibranium bomb,"_ Shuri had said. The look of anger on the man's face suddenly seemed a lot more threatening. What did he want? Another attempt at an Earth takeover? It didn't seem like the smart play, coming back to try anything when the element of surprise and an extraterrestrial _army_ hadn't been enough.

It didn't matter. This guy was - _more_ than bad news. The only thing that mattered was making sure he didn't hurt anyone else.

Even if right now he didn't look like much, a faded echo of what Bucky remembered from New York. The lack of armor to pad him out seemed to only emphasize how thin he was.

But Bucky also knew intimately the ways that being in that condition could make someone all the more dangerous, like a razor's edge.

"These energy readings," T'Challa said, pointing to the rush of purple color that flowed through the model of the man's body. "What are they?"

"I am not sure," Shuri said. "But they have something of a vibranium base."

"Impossible," T'Challa said. "He is not Wakandan."

"It is not impossible. Here."

A file was opened and a slough of text appeared on the display in Xhosa. Bucky scanned it quickly.

A snake in the gardens of the heart-shaped herb. Nearby War Dogs meeting with Zuri and King T'Chaka noticing as it swallowed an herb whole before escaping. The War Dogs had given chase, only to find a wild-eyed white man at the end of the trail. When they managed to head him off, he killed most of them with energy produced by his own body, before succumbing to the spirit-journey coma. The War Dogs had found they couldn't kill him, despite numerous attempts - his skin could not be damaged by their weapons. Even the toxin normally used to revert the herb's effects hadn't worked. So King T'Chaka had ordered both his Design Group and Shuri to design a device to hold the man.

Then they'd stored him down here, until something could be done.

"Why didn't Baba tell us?" Shuri ground out. She made an expansive gesture at the lab, her eyes glittering. "I could have made this better. I could have-"

T'Challa hushed her. "There is no point to such thoughts. You did not know." He directed a wary gaze to the cube. "And he trespassed and stole from us, and killed our men."

"He had to be stopped," Bucky agreed, even as his stomach informed him it was about to rebel. 

"But not like this," Shuri said. She looked bleak.

"I must call together the Council," T'Challa said, "I will find out if anyone knew about this. In the meantime, I want you to leave." His eyes darted to Bucky. "And you."

Shuri made a sound of protest, but T'Challa raised his hands to speak first. "Someone may have information. He has been here for five years, Shuri. A few days longer will not mean much."

 _But he's awake,_ Bucky thought, his eyes shooting back to the brain waves. _He can hear us._

"We will make sure he gets his peace," T'Challa promised.

Shuri nodded unhappily. "I need more equipment anyway," she said. Her eyes rose with a faint challenge. "And I _am_ coming back."

"Yes," T'Challa agreed, "you are."

As they left, Bucky kept his eyes on the way the brain waves spiked faster as the elevator raised them out of the lab.

\----------

The sun was sinking over the horizon at the farm, painting the sky in brilliant orange and red hues. Everyone was readying for bed, the kids that tried to trail Bucky taken back by their caretakers with stern words.

He'd spent the entire day sitting at the water's edge, waiting anxiously for word from Shuri or T'Challa. Neither had contacted him.

Eventually, Anwuli approached him. She held a pair of bowls in her hands, and with a start Bucky remembered her asking him to help her with dinner, too late.

"White Wolf," she greeted, as she handed him the food. Her green top made Bucky's brain perform a jarring and unpleasant jump from an initial familiar warm association with her appearance to deeper anxiety as it forced his mind on the man trapped underground.

He cleared his dry throat and quietly thanked her as he accepted the dishes of pounded yam and egusi soup. "Sorry I forgot about dinner," he said.

"You owe me no apology," she easily responded. "Your run did not give you the comfort you hoped it would."

He shrugged, trying to battle down sour unease. He hadn't been out running, of course. But there was nothing he could really say about the situation, and not only because it was sensitive and secret information. Her lack of surprise at his continued social withdrawal - he hadn't even helped with any _chores_ today - didn't make it better. 

She watched him for a long moment, but when it was clear he wasn't going to say anything, she settled beside him. "Would you like company? To talk?" She gave him a faint smile. "I can also sit and not talk, if you prefer. The children have all been telling me your hair is in need of care."

He exhaled heavily, and suddenly felt like he could sense every speck of dirt on his skin. "Thanks, Anwuli," he said, "but I think I just...need to be alone." He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it came out tight and thin.

"Okay," she said softly, and patted his shoulder. "I will ask again tomorrow." 

He felt a warm glow clash with the clawing guilt as she left. He remained at the edge of the farm while he ate, and watched the sky grow dark. He would return to his hut soon, but right then he needed the openness, the feel of earth beneath him.

He clenched his hand. The air was still warm, but his fingers felt cold. The calm he had been managing in the months past was now out of reach. He almost wondered if he had ever felt it.

The frozen man's face haunted him. With a sigh, he raised his Kimoyo Beads, and searched for information on the attack on New York. He found conspiracy theories, sensational documentary of government cover-ups, mentions of Steve and the Avengers and conflicting motivations for their parts in the battle.

He remembered reading as much when he'd first escaped Hydra. It had been a bitter discovery that he could seek out as much free knowledge as he wanted, but there was no guarantee that it wouldn't just be the same lies Hydra had drilled into him all those years.

He could send a message out to Steve, request a visit. Ask him personally what had happened in New York. It would take a few days or so, depending on where Steve was and what he was doing, but he would come. And maybe Bucky wouldn't feel so damn guilty about the extended vacation he was taking while Steve kept fighting the good fight. Maybe he wouldn't feel so much like he was damaged goods.

 _Pull the other one, pal,_ he thought.

Anyway, Wakanda would take care of itself, like it always did. If Steve was going to get involved with the situation, it couldn't be Bucky's choice.

He kept looking until he found video footage, obviously taken on someone's smartphone, overseeing Loki in Central Park in chains and a muzzle, before disappearing with his brother back into the sky in a beam of light. Something must have happened afterwards - he'd escaped again somehow, and came back to Earth.

Bucky forced himself to turn the beads off. Now it was really time for bed, and the mosquitoes were starting in on him in earnest. He batted them away with his hand as he moved back to his hut.

He managed to stay in bed for all of an hour before he sprang up and packed another bag.

\----------

It took him a few hours to make it back to the lab. He moved at a loping jog, and took the routes with the most cover in case anyone was watching from the sky. When he summoned the elevator, he felt the side of his mouth pull into a smile as he heard the music coming from beneath him. 

Shuri was already there.

She'd changed her clothes and hairstyle since he'd last seen her, which made Bucky feel a bit more self conscious about his current state. She was studying new three dimensional images of what Bucky assumed was Loki's brain. Beside her was a large metal cart full of equipment, including a set of speakers. The music coming from them was downright comatose compared to what she usually liked, instrumental and full of long, steady harmonies over a gentle bass line, the rhythm meant to soothe rather than energize. The brain waves on the display were steady, only giving a slight quicker jump as Bucky approached.

Shuri turned and cocked her eyebrows at him. "You're late," she said, no surprise in her voice.

Bucky slung his bag off his shoulder. "Your airship is cloaked," he realized.

"Uh-huh. That's why I couldn't pick you up. Didn't want to draw attention. Well, that, and I had to go into storage to see if I could find any vibranium-free speakers, so it took me longer to get here than I anticipated." She angled herself briefly to indicate a pair of sleek and tall metal objects about the size and shape of refrigerators that stood across the lab. "I figured we needed to round out the facilities, so I brought a toilet, and the other one is a pop-up shower. Use it."

Bucky reached up to his hair in chagrin. "That bad?"

Shuri gave him a reassuring grin. "Not yet. Your skin is very good at keeping your microbiome balanced. There's not enough bacteria to give you any noticeable body odor. But let's not test how long you can go." She pointed to her Kimoyo Beads. "Also, Anwuli called me."

Bucky opened the shower and automatic lights came on inside. Fresh clothes and towels and toiletries sat on shelving behind a clear panel. There was a drain, and the shower bottom was elevated about a foot off the ground. The water must have been meant to collect in a chamber beneath it.

He shook his head at the advancement of Wakandan technology. "How did you even get this down here?" he asked as he peered inside.

"It's portable. It folds into a carrying case." She paused, and gave him a look. "I first designed it when I was ten. It was for camping trips. There is a button next to the shower head that will convert it into a body dryer when you are done. Now go, you will want to be out here for what comes next."

Bucky shook his head, still mystified, and entered the shower. He made it quick, not liking how close the walls felt even if he was awed with how it worked. What he _did_ like was the heat and air that came with the full body dryer. 

_Really need to get one of these to keep back on the farm,_ he thought.

When he exited, newly clothed and rubbing a towel over his still-damp hair, Shuri was tapping her foot near the computer. 

She came forward to help him tie a new sash over his shoulder. Her expression was nervous as she tied the knots. "I've figured out how to lower the intensity of the energy stabilizers."

"And how safe will that be," Bucky asked. When he looked at Loki, who was still completely motionless in the wall, he saw that Shuri had placed a round dark disc at each of his temples.

"It will just withdraw some of the pressure on his body so he is no longer frozen," Shuri explained. "He will not be able attack us." 

"Okay," Bucky said. A thousand doubts rallied behind that word, but...if she could give Loki some relief without risking anyone's lives, maybe Bucky would stop feeling like he was going to throw up every time he came down here. He already missed the open air.

And then, after that, they could start figuring out how to put Loki out of his misery, permanently. Bucky knew Shuri could figure it out, god from space enhanced by heart-shaped herb-caused mutations or no.

It had been a mercy on King T'Chaka's part that he hadn't made her unknowingly design a weapon back then.

Shuri gave him a look that said she knew his feelings on this matter weren't as simple as "okay." He shrugged.

"I will do it gradually," she reassured, "just in case something goes wrong."

Bucky stood in front of Loki, abdominal muscles tense, giving Shuri a clear view but also angling himself and widening his stance so it would only take a quick movement to shield her if needed.

"Ready?"

Bucky nodded. Here went nothing.

It _was_ gradual. The tightness around Loki's face began to loosen, so slowly at first that Bucky had thought it was just a trick of his eyes, something he wanted to see rather than what was actually happening. But then it became clearer, the anger in Loki's expression slipping away, the muscles in his gaunt face finally allowed to relax. His head dipped down next, boneless, and the rest of his body slumped against his restraints. Green lights began to flash erratically in and around his skin, like the fireflies Bucky and Steve used to watch when they were kids.

"That is good," Shuri said, before Bucky could comment on it. "He is releasing energy."

"He's not doing anything," Bucky said, not as assured. "He's not _breathing_."

As he said that, Loki's eyes rolled back and he began shuddering in quick convulsions. Bucky went tense, not even breathing. He jerked his gaze to Shuri, who had her hand hovered over the brain scan as she watched it with an unnerving focus. Bucky looked back in a panic to the discs at Loki's temples. 

All at once, the body in the cube went lax. Loki's eyelids fluttered, but he still looked insensate.

"You shocked him," Bucky said, unable to help the note of betrayal in his voice, then internally berated himself - _they need to figure out a way to kill him, moron, she was probably just testing to see if it would work._

"I performed electroconvulsive therapy," Shuri said, countering all of Bucky's spiraling thoughts. "He has been down here for _years._ His brain did not know how to react to the replacement of bodily autonomy. Look. He is tracking us now."

And he was. Streaming eyes rimmed with red and blinking rapidly came to focus on Bucky - or focused as much as they could. Loki squinted, as if he was trying to figure out what he was seeing, his watery eyes lingering over the empty space where Bucky's left arm should have been. The more the fog lifted from Loki's gaze, the more the glow over his skin became pronounced, forming and dissipating like wisps of clouds, tiny lightning storms of green energy. Thankfully, Bucky could still see the outline of the perimeter from Shuri's devices that still held the power in check. 

His vision seemingly cleared if a lot tear-filled, Loki tried next to move. When that was unsuccessful, looked down in confusion at his body, black hair hanging in stringy curls about his face. He took in the restraints that held him tight on his knees with his arms twisted behind him. All at once a surge of green exploded out from his skin, folding back over him in a wave as it was contained by the stabilizers. He was breathing now, all right, but they'd taken a turn into the direct opposite direction - short, labored bursts rushing through grit teeth and chapped lips as he tried to bodily heave himself free. When it became clear to him he was stuck, he went still, eyes moving between Shuri and Bucky, breath coming and going in small shivers. 

Shuri came forward so Loki would not have to strain to keep both of them in sight. "Hello," she said with a small wave, and Loki's eyes darted to her in feral panic. "Loki, isn't it?"

There was no change of expression. Bucky glanced at the display of brain waves, but the frantic mess he saw there was not reassuring.

"How is the music?" she asked, low and patient. "Not too loud, I hope."

No response. Just more harsh breathing.

Shuri kept on. "I just want to let you know that I am planning on developing a better technology soon to keep the energy in your body contained. I will not increase the intensity of the stabilizers again until that time."

A twitch of the eye, muscles bunching beneath metal as Loki squirmed again. The pale chin dipped, gaze unwavering, full of wariness.

Bucky liked where that wariness was aimed. He wasn't sure if he would be able to hold it together if Loki threatened Shuri.

Shuri folded her hands together in front of herself. "I know it does not make it better, but I am sorry. You should not have had to suffer for so long." She looked at Bucky. "Do you have anything you wish to say? I need to get back to work."

Bucky tore his eyes away to frown at her. "What would _I_ say?"

Shuri waved off his confusion as she returned to the computer. "I do not know. Tell him more about your goats."

Bucky sighed through a swell of embarrassment. "Heard that, huh?"

She was already working through more lines of code. "This room has audio surveillance. Or it did. I have since disabled it."

"Good." Bucky was going to have a hard enough time speaking with Shuri present, let alone if his words were being monitored. 

He lowered himself into the chair he'd brought forward before, but this time he straightened his back, and kept himself ready to move. "Hi. Again." He felt vaguely unnerved by those piercing eyes, even moreso now that they could focus. "I'm Bucky. Not sure if you heard me before. And you're Loki. I guess." There was a slight change, a flick of the eyes as Loki gave him a brief once over. Encouraged, Bucky continued. "I researched you. Read into that whole taking over the world attempt. That was dumb." He paused. "I'd ask you why you came to Wakanda, but I have a feeling you wouldn't answer." 

Bucky didn't miss the irony that so soon after his stress-induced laconism he was giving someone gentle digs about their silence.

Loki, as expected, didn't respond to the remark. Instead, his gaze moved away from Bucky, and not towards Shuri. Bucky tried to follow Loki's line of sight, but there was nothing of particular interest in that direction that he could see. He turned back, intending on commenting on it, but his words faded when he saw that the bursts of green light above the god's skin were growing in intensity. Then Loki began to shake, shoulders pulling at his bonds, breaths coming in quickly through flared nostrils, and Bucky's apprehension became fully fledged.

"What's that?" Bucky asked. "What the hell are you doing?"

"He has an increase in gamma waves," Shuri said, turning away from her computers and approaching with a hand hovering over her Kimoyo Beads. "He is hallucinating."

"So stop him," Bucky said, nodding to her beads.

Shuri shook her head, new shame lighting her eyes. "I did it once, but without anesthetic, the application of further electroconvulsive therapy would be..."

 _Fucking painful,_ Bucky finished in his mind when she trailed off. "Shit." He stood from the chair and moved slow, tried to encapsulate Loki's line of sight. What had Hydra used to do for him when he hallucinated? Hit him, drug him, tell him lies, and probably wipe him, his mind supplied, which wasn't helpful on a variety of levels. And anyway, he didn't think his hand would survive insertion into the current miasma of energy swirling around Loki like a deadly cloud.

 _God._ He had to try something. "It's not there. Whatever is scaring you doesn't exist." _Because his reality sure is peachy-keen,_ Bucky thought sarcastically. "Loki."

The eyes returned to him, and finally there was an expression other than the pasted-on fear. The pale brow furrowed, Loki's throat working as he tried to focus on Bucky again. The green glow around him began to dissipate.

"The gamma waves are calming," Shuri said in some surprise. "I have never seen someone recover that quickly."

Bucky crouched down. Loki's eyes followed him, though he twitched and sweated in the aftermath of whatever vision had tormented him. "Well, he was already a super-powered alien, and then he ate your plant that gives people superpowers." Bucky kept their eyes locked, waving his hand in greeting and dropping it immediately when Loki flinched. 

"We will have to be careful in how we proceed," Shuri said. "I will want to analyze as many varied measurements of the force behind his power as I can before I create a new set of devices to inhibit the energy he can release. He might be enhanced, but I still think the use of so many stabilizing devices is overkill. They were even placed in his restraints. I had to deactivate those completely."

"But you left them on," Bucky noted. "Why keep the field around him on and not just use the stabilizers in the restraints instead?"

A beat of silence. Shuri sucked in a breath. "Because they were hurting him." At Bucky's look, she spoke again in a well of frustration. "I did not - this was not their _intended use_. I worked from the idea of energy produced strictly from an inorganic source. It was supposed to be-"

"Theoretical," Bucky finished. "I know." She'd been a _kid_ , she hadn't _known_. He wasn't going to blame her for that. 

But he figured that fact wouldn't be a comfort for Loki.

Shuri raised her chin. "I can only hope to make it better from now on." She looked at Loki then, a fire in her eyes. "Do you hear me? This is not how things are going to stay."

Loki stared back, and though Bucky could literally _see_ the wheels turning in the brain waves tracked on the computer display, he didn't know if they were heading in the right direction.

Shuri suddenly looked at her Kimoyo Beads. She winced. "Oh no. Get ready."

Bucky tensed. "For what?"

He heard the entrance to the lab begin to slide open.

"My brother and Okoye are here."


	4. Chapter 4

When the elevator brought them to lab level, T'Challa and General Okoye took in the scene before them. Bucky, positioned next to Loki, stayed in a crouch to appear less threatening. The king of Wakanda was still dressed in a high-collared black vest - he hadn't done any sleeping since their last meeting either, it looked like. He spared Bucky only a glance, before his eyes set on Loki's current unfrozen state, and a deep sigh expanded his chest.

T'Challa turned to Shuri with a look bordering on resignation. "Why am I not surprised?"

"To be fair, you did not technically mention exactly how long you wanted us to leave for," Shuri pointed out as she casually returned to the computer.

T'Challa looked back to Loki, again taking in the state of him, before his lips pressed into a thin line. "I hope you know what you are doing."

Shuri looked offended. "When do I not?"

General Okoye stepped forward, in full armor, vibranium spear in hand as she surveyed the equipment, the displays that tracked the energy inside Loki and his brain waves. She came to a stop near the cube in the wall, and sent Bucky an appraising look before she turned on her target fully. Loki's breaths had come faster as he'd watched her oncoming prowl, his body poised for a defense that it could not follow through on. Bucky felt the tension rise like a tangible thing. He anxiously worked his jaw, but forced himself to stay crouched, to not interfere.

"This is him?" General Okoye asked, though Bucky thought that was fairly obvious. 

T'Challa folded his arms. "Yes."

General Okoye regarded Loki in silence for a long moment more. Then she carefully placed the point of her spear against his torso, pulling the torn tunic aside to examine the scarring on his chest.

Loki flinched. 

The spear exploded. 

Bucky shot to his feet in ready defense. General Okoye just stepped back calmly and examined the burnt remains at the end of her weapon, and did not shy away from the strong scent of fumes that came in the wake of the metal's destruction. 

In the container, Loki's breath came in ragged gasps, tears in his eyes as he tried unsuccessfully to thrash himself back and away, energy continuously bursting out in chaotic swirls of green. Shuri cursed and did something at the computer that made the humming lights in the wall grow louder. Loki cried out, the energy around him lessening until only a soft glow remained.

Bile rushed into the back of Bucky's throat. _("Wipe him, and start over.")_

General Okoye's gaze moved to T'Challa. "It would be too dangerous to loosen his bonds." She gestured to where Loki quivered in unknowable strain. "Even this much freedom is a risk. He should be completely contained until we can find a way to end his life."

"Even if he was freed from the wall, his power could not penetrate out of this room," Shuri argued, her eyes upset as she watched Loki attempt to recover from his distress. "The elevator is lined with devices to keep him contained here. And they are not the most efficient. Give me time to make something better."

"We do not need something better," General Okoye insisted. She stepped closer to T'Challa, her voice low. "This is no common criminal. This man attacked Germany, America and Wakanda." She held up the destroyed end of the spear for presentation. "It would put us all at risk if we do not find a way to execute him."

The more Loki watched them talk over him, the more his eyes grew glazed, until eventually he bent his head and what green light remained rushed to his ears. 

Bucky moved over to Shuri, quietly asking. "What's he doing?"

"His brain is no longer receiving audio input," Shuri answered, her voice hushed.

 _It's not just vibranium energy,_ Bucky thought in some awe. _The guy has honest-to-god magical powers._

"And _he_ should not be here." General Okoye pointed her spear at Bucky, drawing his attention. "This is not information for him to know."

The thing was, Bucky had a lot of admiration for General Okoye. It was just that said admiration came from her ability to allow him to stay in Wakanda while still heavily disliking him and recognizing him for a killer. 

He stood straighter, his thoughts circling, ready to leave at a word from King T'Challa. Loki still had his head lowered as much as his bonds would allow, eyes clamped tightly shut and ears full of a green glow.

Beside Bucky, Shuri had stiffened. Her voice had a bite of acid to it when she spoke. "Well, he is already here, and he already knows."

General Okoye looked to T'Challa and awaited his response.

"I trust him," T'Challa said at length. "He is not to blame for his crimes."

Bucky felt a ping of discomfort at the words, and was suddenly jealous of Loki's anti-hearing powers. He really didn't know what he had done to deserve this constant faith, especially when he knew he did such a poor job of hiding how fucked up his mind was day in and day out.

"Yet," General Okoye said, enunciating the consonant. "Who is to say this was not exactly what he was looking for?"

Privately, Bucky agreed with General Okoye, way more than he agreed with T'Challa or Shuri. Not that he had some big plan involving Loki, but that these conversations weren't things that should include him. This wasn't his place. 

T'Challa gestured at Loki. "My father imprisoned this man here using technology that Shuri designed, and he did not even tell _her_ about it. I sincerely doubt Loki was found through the White Wolf's knowledge of his exact location." T'Challa looked between Bucky and Shuri. "Both the members of the Council and our War Dogs have informed me that no one knew this place was here." 

He stepped closer to Loki, crouching down and peering close. Loki hunched further into himself, tendons in his neck showing in sharp relief. 

T'Challa looked as troubled at the behavior as Bucky felt. He rose into standing and turned away. "I would speak with him before I decide what we should do."

"He doesn't talk," Bucky said.

General Okoye scoffed. "He spoke well enough when he was terrorizing Germany."

"It's not that," Shuri said, an underlying wobble to her voice. "He was down here for years, awake and alone." Her eyes went to Loki, bearing a deep and ashamed hurt. "Unable to see or move, without a single person for social interaction. The psychological effects of such deprivation have been catastrophic."

It didn't get easier to hear. Even trying to imagine Loki as the son of a bitch who would have killed Steve if he could didn't help. _Five years._ Bucky found he'd clamped his teeth together to the point of pain and forced himself to relax his jaw. He struggled to keep his position, to not run for the elevator and fresh air. He felt like the longer he stayed down here, the more he risked getting trapped forever, swallowed by the ground.

 _Get a hold of yourself, Barnes._

General Okoye was speaking when he faded back in from his thoughts. "I do not condone torture," she said, voice hard. "But those facts only emphasize the need to end his life."

Shuri turned back to the computer and gave a demonstratively rough inputting of data, her fingers loud against the keyboard. "And _I_ told you, I can make a more efficient method of containing his power. I can render him completely harmless. We do not need to hurt him or keep him bound in a hole."

"Do it," T'Challa said, shooting General Okoye an apologetic look when she gazed at him sharply. "He is not to leave this facility, but we will make it a better prison than the one he has now, at least until we decide what to do next."

General Okoye did not look pleased, but Bucky found himself exhaling out a stream of tension. They would put Loki out of his misery, in one way or another, and then Bucky could get back to the farm without this place draining away any more of him than it already had.

"He will need food soon, now that he is out of stasis," Shuri said, obviously more eager now that it was clear her brother was fully on her side.

"I brought food," Bucky blurted, then wondered why the hell he had spoken.

The others turned to stare at him. The silence in the room stretched to uncomfortable awkwardness. 

It had been a _simple statement_ , why was no one responding?

 _This is why I hate fucking talking._ "It's in my pack," he clarified.

"We can try it now," Shuri said.

T'Challa pursed his lips. He gave a short nod.

General Okoye directed an incredulous look at T'Challa, then moved towards the elevator in steady steps. 

"Okoye," T'Challa tried.

"I need a new spear," General Okoye said. "I will wait for you on the Royal Talon Flyer." She raised her chin. "I serve my king. But I cannot stay and watch while you spoon-feed a murderer."

T'Challa's features relaxed. "That is your choice to make, general."

When she was gone, T'Challa sighed and turned to Bucky, adjusting the high collar of his vest. "This situation is very unpleasant."

"Tell me about it," Bucky muttered.

"I was, in fact, going to ask you about it." T'Challa gestured to Shuri. "I am glad you have been keeping my sister company, but you are under no obligation to remain if you do not wish it. I can see how this pains you."

Bucky gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh, averting his eyes. Unfortunately, he averted them towards Loki, and got another anxiety-jolting eyeful of claustrophobic restraints and terror. "I'll stay. If that's all right."

T'Challa nodded, and then looked thoughtful for such a long moment that Bucky began to wonder what he had done wrong. But the king just came back into motion by raising his eyebrows. "So, you said you had food?"

Bucky reached for his pack, and began pulling out bottles of water and parcels of wrapped meat, the scents stoking his hunger. "A few things I brought from the farm. It's not much."

"So probably enough to feed a small community," Shuri said, and Bucky paused in his motions. She glanced at him with her eyebrow raised. "I have seen your version of 'not much' before."

Bucky sent her an irked look as she turned her back, then began to set out the rest of the food more slowly. The dig had sent an additional layer of reassurance shooting through him - getting a tease from Shuri meant that she was feeling at least a little better about the situation.

T'Challa clapped his hand on Bucky's shoulder in sympathy, before he looked to the erratic bursts of energy that were still forming and dissipating around Loki, if at a much more faded intensity. "You will probably need some protection."

Shuri suddenly moved away from the computer and to a black box that was on the cart beside her. "I designed this while I was back at the Great Mound," she explained, as she presented the box to Bucky. For half a second he was terrified that it was a prosthetic arm, a weapon, and hated the part of himself that thought - _but wouldn't it be easier if it was, you wouldn't have to worry about the kids and Anwuli needing to help you with your clothes, could take more of your independence back, stop being such a burden._

But when he opened it, he only found several sets of dark gleaming bracelets, similar to the Kimoyo Beads.

"These are Stabilizing Beads. I made them for you, too," she told T'Challa. "They are more refined than what is keeping Loki contained, so they should not disrupt the vibranium energy fields that come from our Kimoyo Beads." She grabbed a third set. "These _were_ going to be for Okoye..."

"I will make sure she gets them," T'Challa said, taking the box from Shuri.

Shuri helped Bucky get his bracelet on, and ran the pad of her thumb over one of the beads to activate it. 

"Try it," she said.

"You sure?" Bucky asked, eyeing the purple glow coming from his new accessory.

Shuri lowered her eyes briefly, before she gazed at him in determination. "He responds more favorably to you." She fidgeted with her hands, a sign of lowered confidence that Bucky had never seen her display. He hated immediately that she felt like that. "Remember that he could hear us, while he was trapped. He knows that I am the reason he is stuck here."

"That's not what I meant," Bucky said. He didn't give a crap about Loki having any sort of fear of Shuri, especially if it meant he viewed her with caution. Bucky had only been instinctively thinking that a piece of jewelry, no matter how high tech, was going to be a poor guard against whatever magic Loki was still dispensing. He'd destroyed a _vibranium spear_ in a thought, and without visible effort.

But Bucky had seen Shuri build things that were smaller and did more, so he shut up and picked up one of the water bottles he'd set out.

Loki's eyes were open, directed downwards. Bucky slowly approached and shook the water bottle in the periphery of his vision. Loki cringed, but after a few seconds he darted his gaze up through limp and frayed hair. Bucky set down the bottle to mime pulling something out of his ears, and the green glow that was there sputtered out of existence.

"I have water," Bucky said, carefully soft. He reached back and grabbed a handful of plums and pears, and showed a pile of dried and spiced and salted meat that sat in an unwrapped parcel. He hoped they smelled as appetizing to Loki as they did to him. "And food. If you want it. Not sure what people from your planet eat. Or if you eat."

The eyes narrowed in distrust, but a tongue briefly poked out to press against dry lips, and a loud rumbling sounded in the bound god's stomach. That answered that question all right. Bucky flexed his fingers, braced himself, and slowly reached his hand in past the stabilizing barrier to test Shuri's bracelet. He could feel vibrations in the air around his hand, but his skin didn't melt off, the green lights avoiding his hand.

He withdrew, and considered. This was going to be awkward - Loki was tall, definitely taller than Bucky, but the compartment in the wall in which he was trapped was not. Which meant that Bucky had to crouch down to see what he was doing and have a better angle to get close enough. 

_Here we go,_ he thought, _about to crawl into a box with a super-powered alien god._ The closeness of the walls of the cube curdled in the air around him like a solid thing, affecting him far more than the lights from Loki's magic. He imagined something going wrong, a slip of the hand, and the wall locking him inside with Loki. _You're only halfway inside it. The door would be more likely to cut you in half and you'd bleed out before you could suffocate._

He really needed to work on his thoughts of self-encouragement.

Somehow he managed to keep it together enough to reach inside. When he came near, Loki's nostrils flared, some of the anger-terror combination that had been present on his face when he'd been frozen bleeding back into his expression. The scarring on the thin chest seemed to grow more prominent as rapid breathing exposed more of the black, puckered skin.

Still being sure to keep his movements slow and obvious, Bucky held up the water bottle to Loki's lips.

Instead of eagerly quenching his thirst at the gentle pressure, Loki suddenly jerked against his restraints, his lips parting around a strained, angry grunt through his teeth. He only became more agitated the longer Bucky held the bottle out to him, his struggles growing increasingly violent by the second.

Bucky lowered his hand and pulled back. Loki's eyes were set hard in his direction, constant shivers racing through him, but he'd stopped fighting to move away.

"Did he drink?" Shuri asked. 

Bucky pulled out of the compartment and sat back on his heels. "He said 'no.'"

"He needs water," Shuri said, voice urgent. "His body is losing its ability to regulate temperature."

"He doesn't want water." Bucky didn't want Loki to suffer from any sort of nutritional imbalance or dehydration, but he wanted even less to wrestle him for his own good. He set the water bottle down next to his knee and began to gather the food he'd set out. "I'm not gonna force him."

"Can you find a way to make the stasis more humane?" T'Challa asked Shuri. "It will be no good if he deteriorates."

She sighed. "Give me until morning - _later_ morning, and I will have the new restraints developed."

T'Challa nodded. "Ayo is also here. Okoye and the Dora are going to be taking shifts with guarding the entrance while you work." His brow furrowed unhappily. "As are the Jabari."

Bucky went back on alert. _Oh._ He'd only ever met the Jabari's leader once. After T'Challa had let it be widely known about Bucky's settling in Wakanda, Shuri had taken him to meet the Tribal Council and the leaders therein. M'Baku had exuded a pure unimpressed air at Bucky's appearance. While the other Elders had addressed Bucky with a calm respect, M'Baku had huffed out a loud noise to gain his attention when he'd come close to appraise him. 

_"Stay away from the mountains, White Wolf,"_ he'd eventually said. _"You are not welcome on Jabari lands."_

Not exactly a threat, but Bucky had known better than to make one required.

Bucky gave a heavy exhale. That added another person who wasn't exactly going to be over the moon about his involvement. Maybe he could back out now - Shuri was well on her way to getting Loki out of that wall, and he would be free in the morning, given rights more acceptable for a prisoner. He would probably even be given a fair trial before they dealt with him, permanently. Bucky didn't need to risk getting kicked out of his new home over this mess he'd collapsed into.

Shuri turned to face T'Challa in disbelief. "You gave them permission?"

T'Challa stood firm. "M'Baku was insistent. And they have a right to be concerned. I cannot refuse them in good conscience, as their king."

Shuri made a noise of annoyance and turned back to her work. "M'Baku is not allowed down here." Bucky could hear the undercurrent of nervousness in her tone that she was trying to mask with flippancy. "This is sensitive equipment. I cannot have him and his men hooting and stomping all over the place."

"I told him as much. But I will have to allow him to see the prisoner eventually." T'Challa turned to Bucky. "I must go. I am assuming you do not want a ride home."

 _Now's your chance,_ Bucky thought. _Go with him, head back to the farm, let others deal with this and get back to working on yourself enough that you don't feel like your head is going to explode._

But all he said was, "I really wish I did."

T'Challa's answering smile was sympathetic. "I will let them know to not expect you."

  
\----------

As the night progressed into morning and beyond, Loki's eyes alternated between focused and glazed. He didn't seem to have any further hallucinations, but keeping his attention on reality was clearly a strain. Eventually, his eyelids had begun to droop, shooting open in panic time after time until eventually his head had dipped forward and he did not move again. The limited glow that surrounded his body faded away to nothing.

Bucky used all of his stealth to quietly leave the chair where he'd again taken up residency. He moved to Shuri's side to check her progress, and noted unhappily that Loki's energy wasn't the only that was wearing down. Her eyes were watery and red-tinged when she turned to him.

"It would be easier if I could apply a subdermal implant," she said, as if Bucky had been in on her thought process this entire time. "Something that would engage directly with the energy he produces. Most of it comes out directly from his hands."

"But you'd have to be able to cut into his skin," Bucky said.

Shuri made notes on a small screen she carried with her. "I can develop something, later. Right now I am just attempting to develop a system of containment with no damage to the host."

He wondered if she was planning on taking any breaks during all of that. She'd accepted a few of the pears he'd brought with him, but even now one was sitting half eaten on the table with the other two untouched. He'd seen her busy, but he'd never seen her like this - driven by guilt and anguish as she made her inventions.

It almost made him wish he hadn't stumbled upon this place at all, that he and her and everyone else could go on blissfully ignorant of what was trapped underground.

"Let me know if you need anything," he murmured, and left her to her work.

She didn't ask him for help, of course, and she grew progressively quieter as the hours went on, the multiple long nights and jet lag sapping her energy. Even Bucky was beginning to feel fatigued, but he just sat on the chair in front of Loki and rested his forehead on his hand, tried to let Shuri's music soothe him into something of a meditative state. 

Eventually, her hand on his shoulder had him starting to full awareness. "They are done." 

She held up what Bucky might have in any other situation thought was just some fancy jewelry. It almost looked like the skeleton for a glove, with a set of five silver finger-width rings each attached to a thin, flexible material of varying lengths, coming together to join to a cuff that was clearly meant for the wrist. As she placed pressure on the cuff, the rings retracted into it, leaving it now looking like nothing more than a thick silver bracelet.

"Gauntlet Stabilizers," she explained. "He will carry the field that suppresses the energy within him without it interfering with movement. I designed them to pair with with your Stabilizing Beads. They can be activated in case of emergency to restrain him further - to slow him down, or limit his perimeter of movement, or stop it completely, as we found him. There is also a fail-safe in place for this same response should the neural circuits in his brain drive him to violence around anyone wearing Kimoyo Beads. Even if I hate that it happened, Okoye's poking helped me calibrate them to account for such explosive reactions." 

They sounded frighteningly thorough. Bucky looked at Loki where he knelt with his arms bound behind him. "So now we just need to get them on him," he said, moving to his feet. He held out his hand. "Here. Might as well be me."

Shuri hesitated. "We can wait, if you are more comfortable - I already have designs, I can make you a new prosthetic-"

"No," Bucky broke in, then winced as Loki jerked awake from his raised voice, the energy around him again spurring to life. "No arm."

Shuri firmed her expression. "Then I will increase the stabilizing field. Once you have them on him, I will let him go."

Bucky gave her a nod, sliding his body into careful readiness.

When he turned back to Loki, the god immediately zeroed in on what he held in his hand, and then turned suspicious eyes on Shuri. He didn't look much better than he had before his nap, but the movement of his brain waves suggested that his mind was in working order. Which meant he was going to be fully aware now that they were about to do something he really wouldn't like.

Maybe he'd be forgiving when he realized he had freedom to move, but...Bucky wasn't going to hold his breath. 

"Hey," he said, and Loki's eyes immediately moved from Shuri and latched onto him with their usual unnerving piercing quality. "She's figured out a way to get you out of there and keep us alive at the same time." He held up the Gauntlet Stabilizers in his hand. 

"Increasing the stabilizing field now," Shuri said.

The barrier that surrounded Loki began to visibly shrink. Bucky forced himself to watch, saw Loki's eyes go wide as he realized what was happening, watched him immediately begin to fight his restraints in hopeless futility, choking himself on the band around his neck. He heard the noises Loki made, wordless and rasping, like a desperate animal, as the walls closed in.

It was only when Loki's struggles stilled, as his face once again became frozen, his magic fully suppressed, that Bucky realized he'd gripped the Gauntlet Stabilizers hard enough to cut into his hand. Not much, but he berated himself as he tried to hide the fact from Shuri, quickly wiping the blood on his pants.

Shuri sounded shaken but determined. "Releasing the restraints now."

The hoops that locked over Loki in varying places suddenly opened all at the same time, revealing the lights that lined the inside of them before they retreated into the walls. Now no longer held up, Loki fell forward onto his chest, and Bucky winced in sympathy as he heard the god's teeth clack together upon landing. Loki's brain waves were going crazy, an eerie counterpoint to the complete stillness of his body.

 _You're up, Buck,_ he thought, and if that encouraging voice in his head sounded like Steve, well...

He moved forward into the wall, and repositioned Loki's arms so they were no longer in such an awkward angle behind him, wincing at the popping noises that came from joints held long without movement. God, he was so _thin_ , made up almost entirely of long bony limbs. Bucky grasped the sides of Loki's head, and tilted it so that he wasn't faceplanted. The exposed skin around the nearly-skeletal wrists and neck was blistered a livid red. Bucky felt a vicious lurch of the ever present nausea as he took in the sight. 

He glanced down at the new restraints, hesitating.

"Those will not hurt him," Shuri promised. "I did it right this time."

Bucky immediately felt guilty for any doubt. "I believe you," he said.

Then he snapped the gauntlets on Loki. The rings she'd showed him slid out from the wrist cuffs, almost as slick as liquid, and reached up automatically to lock around the long fingers beneath each knuckle, seamless against the skin. Lights activated around each wrist, the same cold blue of the ones in the wall.

Loki was still prone, still frozen, eyes unblinking. Bucky waited, body rigid, as Shuri did some final checks on her tech. He kept his eyes on Loki and away from whatever terror the brain waves would be indicating, whatever fear would come from being completely immobile, trapped, while a person's captors posed and applied devices to them without their consent. 

Eventually, Shuri said, "I can release him now."

"Good," Bucky said, relief filling him even as he squared his shoulders. "Good. Now the real fun can start."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO, posting this a day earlier this week - AND there's going to be an extra chapter posted on Tuesday! Here's my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/anamelessdragon), feel free to stop by and say hi! (Although not on Monday the 17th, as I will be participating in the protest. ;) )

If Bucky had been warned in advance that his week was going to end with him squaring off against a feral alien god, it probably wouldn't have been as big a surprise as he wanted it to be. He'd been seeing weird crap since the 40s, and reading about it before that. Even if he shuddered his thoughts away from what had happened during his time as Hydra's Winter Soldier, there was a heck of a lot of weird world news floating around. 

He certainly wouldn't have expected this to be at the top of his to-do list, though.

And it sure as hell didn't mean he had to like it.

He kept a cautious distance, half thinking that as soon as Loki was up he was going to just disintegrate the gauntlets like they were nothing and go for Bucky's throat. But it soon became apparent that Loki was going to be barely able to move, let alone come at either Bucky or Shuri.

Loki shifted on the ground, arms trembling violently as he shakily struggled to lift himself onto hands and knees, breaths hitching in the aftershocks of being forced back into stasis hell. His eyes were wide and streaming, teeth still clenched as he tried to hold his body weight under his own power for what had to be the first time in years. It took him more than a few tries to manage it, fumbling limp and weak against the metal floor. 

The energy that had lashed out inside the barrier was still absent, effectively gone now that the gauntlets were in place.

Shuri had done it again.

Loki managed to lock his arms to keep himself up, then stilled as he saw his hands. Bucky wondered if Loki was more staring because of his fancy new jewelry or because he hadn't seen his own damn hands in forever. He lifted first one and then the other, carefully slow, curling and uncurling his fingers, his breaths coming quicker and quicker.

Bucky tried not to let Loki's fear influence his own. "Sorry, those are staying on."

Loki's head jerked up, dilated pupils veering between Bucky and Shuri as he gasped for air. His back curved down and he retreated away from them, palm flat against the wall for balance, until he was pressed into a far corner of the container, folded over his knees. Even when he came to a stop he was a well of constant anxious movement, gaunt shoulders shifting beneath the thin tunic, gaze darting as he struggled to focus through copiously tearing eyes.

Bucky crouched down to better keep him in his line of sight, to put them on equal footing. He didn't want Loki getting in any easy body shots if he came darting out of that box.

"Loki," Shuri called, and Loki's gaze shot in her direction, though he probably couldn't quite see her with how far back he'd pushed himself into the hole. "I just want to warn you, those gauntlets are not only for inhibiting your energy blasts. They are set to trigger if you attack anyone wearing Kimoyo Beads."

Bucky helpfully shook his wrist to show exactly what that meant. 

Loki shied away from the gesture, knocking the side of his head into the wall, then turned his eyes back down to the gauntlets locked over his hands. He began to pick and shove at them, but though the metal lines that ran from the cuffs to the rings bent to allow him to move freely, they would not budge from his skin. He opened his mouth, a rasping, single, nearly inaudible word dragging up from a dry throat and through cracked lips.

" _Why._ "

"Because we don't want to end up like those other people you killed when you showed up," Bucky said. "The ones that put you down here after you were stupid enough to steal from them."

Loki's body thrummed in fear. His hand went to the scar on his chest.

"Wonderful bedside manner," Shuri said with a note of disapproval. 

Bucky refused to apologize. "This isn't a bedside. It's a prison. And he's dangerous."

Loki brought his arms up with a grimace and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, then after a moment moved them to his ears, hunching forward and shuddering. " _Not._ "

Bucky raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Not what? Not dangerous?"

Loki dropped his hands and raised one to the front of his throat, rubbing impatiently with his fingers over reddened skin, before he hovered it again over the scarring on his chest. He met Bucky's eyes and bared his teeth. " _Kill._ "

Bucky tensed, fist clenched. "If you try, you'll find out exactly what those things do." Bucky spoke like he had any chance in hell of understanding _himself_ how they worked, but Loki didn't need to know that. Better to not show weakness. 

" _Me._ "

"Yeah, you pal, that's what-"

"That's not what he means," Shuri interrupted, a quiet horror in her voice. "The words were meant to go together."

Bucky went over them in his mind. _"Why not kill me?"_

 _Fuck_.

Shuri came forward then, and at her approach Loki shrunk back, hands raised in instinctive defense. She slowly crouched down beside Bucky.

"We are not going to kill you," she said, voice earnest.

Bucky shrugged. "I mean, if he's asking for it..."

Shuri gave him a sharp look. Bucky shut up. _Great time for your sense of humor to kick in, Barnes._

But Loki was done communicating now, it seemed, Shuri's approach making him clam up completely. His hands shook, and he stared at her with an intensity that made Bucky's skin crawl. 

Shuri waited a full minute before she backed off, venturing to the computers. Loki's eyes followed her until she was out of his line of sight.

"I am going to see if I can find more information about what happened," she said, trying to mask the distress in her voice. 

"Hey," Bucky said to gain Loki's attention. "She's the reason we got you out of that damn thing." _Or would have got you out, if you hadn't decided that was the safest place in the room to be._

Loki hissed, and clawed at his own hands again. " _Slave._ " This time his voice was so faint and scratchy that it was nearly unintelligible.

"That is _not_ why I released you," Shuri said, still facing the computer displays, and now _she_ sounded like she was getting pissed. "You are not free, but we are not going to use you. Or torture you. We just want to understand what you did and why you were placed here."

Loki made a disgusted noise, his expression showing he believed there was a snowball's chance in hell that her words were true. He didn't volunteer any further information. But Bucky wouldn't have been fond of speaking either if he had a throat that sounded like that.

He picked up the discarded water bottle from earlier and carefully held it out. "Here." He rolled it into the cube.

Loki reeled back, but reached forward to snatch the object a moment later, clutching it tightly to his chest. He made no move to drink from it.

"It's not poison, I promise," Bucky said.

Loki didn't move, eyes suspicious. He was clearly thirsty, but he wasn't willing to make himself vulnerable by taking a drink.

Bucky sighed, and then backed off to give him more space. He kept his guard up. He reached into his bag for some food and looked up in time to see Loki tear the cap from the bottle and then desperately down the contents, pale throat working with each deep swallow. The bottle was then dropped with a gasp, Loki returning to his defensive posture.

Shuri watched the exchange, but was clearly wary about approaching and setting Loki off again. "He will need electrolytes, too," she said.

"Well, maybe now he'll eat something," Bucky said, holding out an opened parcel of dried meat and a few pieces of fruit, intending to set it down close and back off again.

Shuri made a frustrated noise. "I should have planned better for this."

Bucky paused, and began to pull the food back. "Should we wait?"

That was when Loki lunged forward. 

Bucky had a second to brace and think _here it comes_ as a shoulder crashed with bruising force into his chest and the air was expelled from his lungs. But Loki reeled back rather than fight forward at the contact, back into the compartment in the wall, the food he'd stolen tight in his hands.

Bucky rubbed at his chest, feeling the new contusion form. "I thought you said the stabilizers would trigger if he attacked?"

Shuri shook her head. "That wasn't an attack. That was an accident."

Bucky sighed unhappily. Now he had a taste of what Loki's strength was like, when he _didn't mean to._

_("Buck, stop, you're gonna kill someone!")_

So it was very possible that even with the settings, if someone came down here and messed with him enough, he could "accident" them to death.

This was going to be great.

\----------

Bucky and Loki spent the next couple of hours regarding each other warily, each waiting for the other to make a move. Despite the initial sting, the bruise on Bucky's chest faded fairly quickly.

The empty parcel and bottles and pear cores sat at Loki's knees. He'd devoured the food in quick, small bites, eating constantly until every edible piece was gone, his eyes continuously scoping the room for danger. Then he'd spent the next several minutes looking extremely uncomfortable, hands over his belly, a grimace pulling at his face every so often.

He kept the food down, though, so Bucky assumed that was a good sign. 

What wasn't a good sign was that whenever Bucky so much as shifted in his seat to ease his aching spine, Loki would peer up at him with wide eyes, bracing for an attack that wasn't coming. It didn't help Bucky's mood, the quick flinches and starts sending spears of alarm through his own calm, until his nerves felt scraped raw and he actually wished Loki would just use the violence Bucky knew he was capable of rather than continue the skittish behavior. 

Eventually, Shuri dipped her head in defeat. "There's nothing else here," she said, rubbing her eyes. "No research notes, nothing. They really did just put him down here for storage."

Bucky felt the general terribleness of the situation skewer him anew. "Now's as good a time as ever for a break. The only thing he seems interested right now in is hoarding his garbage." Bucky directed his gaze at Loki. "Right?"

Loki peeled his lips into a snarl.

"Feeling's mutual," Bucky muttered. 

Shuri sighed. "I do want to go over the data on his brain scans in more detail. There are some anomalies that I would like to look into. The equipment in my lab would better serve me."

Bucky felt a spear of relief that maybe now Shuri would take a break. She had a fantastic mind, but physically, she was still a teenager. "So go. Get some rest while you're at it. I'll stay and watch him."

She exhaled unhappily. "I can call down one of the Dora. You need sleep as well."

Bucky shrugged. "I can go for longer. Wouldn't say no to a run at some point, though." He waved her off. "Go. I'll keep an eye on the trash dragon."

She gave a slight smile, the first one he'd seen her give in hours. Her eyes, though, were still haunted. Bucky knew no amount of reassurances would help that feeling. She'd been used by her father, plain and simple, even if he'd tried to protect her from it by never telling her about it.

"Music?" she asked.

"Leave it on," Bucky said. He'd come to rely on the gentle rhythm and soothing beat more than he'd expected to. And it helped to drown out the sound of Loki's rasping breaths.

Shuri pointed to her Kimoyo Beads. "Call me if you need anything."

When Shuri was gone, Bucky felt some part of him ease now that he wouldn't have to contend with the instinctive worry for her safety on top of his own.

Loki seemed to relax a bit, too, but Bucky knew it was for an entirely different reason in relation to Shuri's absence. At the very least, it was one less threat for him to keep track of. He still didn't look like he had any plans of leaving the corner of his cube.

Bucky stretched his back and pointed to Shuri's high-tech outhouse. "I have to pee," he said, rising from the chair. "I'll be back in a minute."

Loki ground out a rough noise, breaking off into abrupt silence. 

Bucky paused, and moved onto the balls of his feet instinctively. "Is there a problem?"

No verbal response, but Loki met his eyes with an anxious gaze. Despite the food and water, he still looked like shit warmed over. Alien or not, that kind of grey color to his complexion couldn't be good. And his hand had drifted to his chest again, the pads of his fingers pushing into the edges of the black scarring. 

Bucky turned his back and moved slowly towards the toilet. Loki's breathing grew more ragged and fraught with each subsequent step he took. When Bucky couldn't take it anymore he whirled around again, thinking maybe the god was hallucinating once more, but Loki's eyes were clear if a little overly watery. He wasn't even blinking as he watched Bucky, but he'd stretched his arm out and put his hand on the side of the compartment, fingers spread like a pale spider. As if he wanted to use it to drag himself out, but was too frightened to follow through.

Bucky gave it one more try. "Something you wanna say?"

Loki's jaw worked, but he kept quiet. He didn't look away, either.

 _Just go_ , Bucky thought, now more than thoroughly anxious at the response. He entered the outhouse but kept the door open, and though there were no sounds of movement, Loki made a few low noises of distress that made his hackles rise. 

He all but darted out when he was finished. Loki was still in the compartment, but now his hands were clenched into his hair as he made muffled noises that sounded far too much like weeping.

"I'm back," Bucky said, even though he hadn't gone anywhere. If Loki was this easily confused, better to be straightforward and announce most of what he was doing.

Some of the terror leaked out of Loki's expression, the noises cutting off abruptly as he darted his eyes up. He hesitantly dropped his hands, licked at his lips. "Not...real."

His voice already sounded miles better now that he'd had water, but it still seemed like it was a physical and mental strain for him to get words out. Bucky crouched, reaching for his own discarded food parcel and crumpling it into a ball. Loki flinched at the sound and made a hasty retreat to the far wall of his box, cancelling out all his progress forward. The whites of his eyes were prominent, his teeth bared.

"I'm real," Bucky said, throwing the ball in Loki's direction so it landed on the floor in front of him.

Wide eyes moved downwards, the long body pulling away from the wall. A hesitant hand reached out and grasped at the paper. 

Bucky kept his voice low and even, nodded at the garbage that sat at Loki's knees. "There's another piece to add to your growing collection." 

Loki put down the paper ball, the look he gave Bucky unreadable. Then his posture drooped with exhaustion. 

At least he no longer looked like he would explode with panic. 

Loki clenched and unclenched his hand around the paper, squeezing it into a more compacted shape. He lowered his eyes.

"Rules," he breathed.

Bucky straightened. "What?"

Loki grimaced, long fingers coming up to rub at his temples, as if pushing hard enough could set his brain right. His voice was filled with frustration. "Rules." He pointed a finger at himself. "For..." Loki shuddered. "Not."

When he didn't finish, Bucky spoke. "Not what?"

Loki indicated the walls around him, then began to fidget more obsessively with the gauntlets. "Stop."

"Stop," Bucky echoed.

Loki growled, but there was a whining edge to the noise. He knocked his head against the neighboring wall.

"Hey," Bucky said, voice hardening. Loki froze. "If you want to brain yourself, I'm not gonna stop you. But I don't think that's what you're trying to do."

Loki's throat jumped as he swallowed. His head dipped, hair obscuring his expression. He held his hand out, thin fingers curling and uncurling one a time to create a steady wave. "Not," he repeated, and then clenched his shaking hand into a fist, forcing it still.

_He's asking what he has to do to not get put back in stasis._

"I'm not the one in charge of that," Bucky said, throat tightening. "But it's fairly simple if you don't want to piss them off. Keep your head down. Don't attack anyone. Do what they say."

Loki pulled his hand back. Bucky saw a lip curl through the curtain of hair.

Bucky shrugged. "You asked."

Thin shoulders slumped, hands digging and itching again around the gauntlets. Then all at once Loki pushed himself farther into the compartment so his back was wedged into a corner. 

Looked like they were done for now. That was fine. Bucky was tired of talking, anyway.

\----------

Two hours later, Bucky asked, "do you ever pee?"

The look Loki shot him made him decide not to pursue that line of questioning.

\----------

Bucky stopped keeping track of the time. There was no point, and he didn't want to obsess over how long he'd been stuck down in the lab, or how much longer he would stay down here for, or how long he'd gone without sleep. He'd moved his chair back, trying to give Loki more space, to see if he would consider leaving the cube. He'd even made it clear, verbally, that Loki didn't have to keep himself in there. Loki had just given him a bland look in response.

Bucky still kind of preferred that, not knowing what either of them would do if they really felt threatened. Despite the Gauntlet Stabilizers, he'd been quietly and carefully cataloguing where Loki was weakest. (The chest scar was the obvious choice for a hit, but Loki also seemed to favor his head, and his legs probably weren't in the best shape from the constant kneeling and crouching. He also _really_ hated loud noises.)

The level of tension didn't stay at it's peak forever. Bucky began to notice that Loki's fidgeting with the gauntlets had taken on a matching rhythm to Shuri's music, as the hours stretched on and the songs began to repeat. That might have been something positive. Maybe he'd ask Shuri about some headphones. 

As for himself, Bucky tried to stay occupied. He used his Kimoyo Beads to try to find more information on Loki, anything that would give him an idea of how he should feel about this situation, a tug in the right moral direction. He envied Steve, still so certain, still so able to get things right after all these years. 

He had to stop looking eventually, the articles and their electrifying descriptions of Loki's prowess and his narrow defeat only sending Bucky's mind into a deeper worry. All that he had accomplished was making his hand ache for the feel of a gun, for all the good it would do against an alien god.

\----------

King T'Challa called him at some point after that, and Bucky was so eager for good news, any news, that he answered immediately.

"I heard that you managed to get my sister to go home and rest," T'Challa said, expression impressed and more than a little relieved. "Thank you."

"I can't take credit," Bucky admitted. "If she really didn't want to go she'd still be here."

"All we can do is suggest," T'Challa agreed. His expression sobered. "How is the prisoner?"

Bucky looked at Loki, who had his gaze down on his gauntlets, slouched against the wall, his long legs folded under him. "Still in his box."

T'Challa frowned. "Has he spoken?"

"Once or twice. Only one word at a time. Doesn't seem like he can do much more than that."

T'Challa nodded thoughtfully. "And your assessment of his threat potential?"

Loki dropped the pretense of his uninterest, his eyes suddenly boring into Bucky knowingly. 

Bucky looked back. "He hasn't shown his hand yet. But I don't think he has one at this point besides trying to do what he can to avoid being locked back up."

Loki opened and closed his hands, his breaths taking on a labored quality. His edges had grown more ragged, clearly running on low reserves but unwilling to take the time to rest while he still felt in such danger. There was nothing Bucky could do about that but watch the decline. He knew Loki would collapse eventually, and then maybe when he woke again and was still free, something would begin to penetrate that tangle of terror.

"The Elders will be coming to see him soon," T'Challa said. He hesitated for a beat. "I would like for you to be there."

Bucky frowned, and thought of M'Baku and General Okoye. "No offense, but I'm not sure that's a good idea."

T'Challa lifted his chin. "No? What have you done that is untrustworthy before now?"

Oh good, so now he got to list his screw ups to the _king_. Bucky swallowed. "I tried to hack into the computers here without permission."

"And when you were unsuccessful, your response was to call my sister, which I believe you would have done even if you had managed it." 

"I came back to the lab when you told me to leave."

"I said nothing to forbid your return." T'Challa raised his eyebrows. "Do you wish for the job or not?"

Bucky stopped breathing. "What job?"

"To relieve the Dora Milaje and the Jabari of their posts. To take sole charge of the prisoner as we make reparations for his treatment. Shuri has already begun drawing up plans." T'Challa tilted his head, gave Bucky a moment to digest. "You can refuse, of course."

The responsibility abruptly loomed in front of Bucky, making his stomach drop. _No,_ he thought. But he kept quiet.

"You may have some time to make your decision," T'Challa said. "And I will ensure no unwarranted harm comes to him in the event you turn it down."

Bucky swallowed. His eyes went back to Loki's haggard face. The expression was unchanged, but long fingers shoved uselessly at the rings beneath each knuckle, the thin body still hunched into the corner.

Bucky straightened his shoulders, his eyes back on T'Challa, that feeling in his belly getting stronger. "When are the Elders coming?" _What the fuck are you doing,_ his mind yelled. 

T'Challa read into his words. He nodded, expression grateful. "We will be there in a couple of hours."

"I'll be here," he said. 

The Kimoyo Beads cut off. Bucky kept his hand elevated in the aftermath, unmoving, staring blankly into the space beyond. 

He shot to his feet, ignoring the resulting flinch from inside the cube. "I need to go for a run," he said, even though the movement he'd just taken only emphasized how much his own body was lurching into exhaustion.

Loki said nothing, but Bucky could see the way his body began to shake.

"I'm coming back," Bucky said, resigned. "I'll send someone down to watch you in the meantime."

He forced himself to ignore the sounds of despair Loki made as he ascended, even though they sent his heart pounding. Bucky needed a reset, needed fresh air and living earth. He wasn't going to be much use if his mind was suffocated by metal walls. 

Dora Milaje and Jabari warriors stood in equidistant positions around the elevator as he was brought to the surface, their weapons at the ready. Ayo and a Jabari he didn't recognize stood at their head.

Bucky kept his body relaxed and unthreatening, even though he couldn't stop cataloguing their weapons in his periphery. "I'll be back in a couple of hours," he said. 

Ayo glanced at the Jabari warrior, and they nodded at each other. They stepped onto the elevator as Bucky stepped off, taking it down, while the remaining warriors changed position to account for the newly emptied space.

He didn't let himself stay and doubt. He ran.

\----------

Dirt raised in clouds behind him, the flower spikes on the plume grass whipping his stomach and legs and hand as he raced through. When he felt fatigue, he pushed himself harder. His side cramped. He ignored it. He wanted the pain, wanted it to get so bad that it calmed his racing thoughts.

What was the point here? What was he hoping to achieve? To make sure the alien bastard who wanted to enslave the entire human race wasn't mistreated? What would a person like that have done, if he'd had possession of a weapon like the Winter Soldier?

And it wasn't his place, he'd thought. He'd put himself into the middle of something that he shouldn't have. They should have scolded him, ousted him, sent him back to the farm and forbidden him to return. Maybe even thrown him out of Wakanda permanently.

But now King T'Challa was _asking_ him to take it as his place. To interfere. 

_"Rules,"_ Loki had asked, with the resignation of the doomed, not even able to bring himself to leave his prison as much as it clearly terrorized him. And maybe that would change, but maybe it wouldn't.

Bucky was under no illusions about how damn lucky ( _unlucky_ ) he was that he hadn't ended up dead in the ground a hundred times over at this point. The Wakandans were pampering him in the wake of everything he'd done. Now there was a chance for him to really earn his keep in exchange for their help.

To take up a mission.

The border of Wakanda stood visible in the distance. He turned his back on it and raced back to the lab, following the harsh divots in the earth that his path had made.

\----------

T'Challa was there when he returned, standing only with General Okoye. The additional Jabari and Dora that had guarded the exit before were absent. The sun was beginning to track it's way down towards the horizon.

T'Challa greeted him as he approached. "White Wolf. Thank you, for considering this. The Elders are already inside. Are you ready?"

Bucky focused on the feeling of limbs loose from his run, the normally tensed muscles of his back warmed from blood flow. "As ready as I'll ever be." 

He took in a deep breath and held it, like he could make himself feel better by taking a piece of the openness down with him. He mounted the elevator platform with T'Challa and General Okoye, and willingly descended back down into metal walls.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, depending on how busy my job is this week for the pre-holiday rush, I may have to push the next update back to Sunday instead of Saturday. I am still planning on shooting for Saturday, but it's possible I'll get delayed in editing with studious health monitoring. Just a heads up! And you can always keep an eye on my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/anamelessdragon), I usually post progress updates there when the posting date nears.
> 
> Also, that "Bucky didn't sign up for this" tag? Probably gonna need to add an addendum after this chapter. ;)

The first thing Bucky noticed as the elevator came to a stop, was that Shuri's music had been turned off, rendering the lab silent but for the running electrical equipment and quiet murmurings of discussion. The second thing he noticed, was that the claustrophobic quality of the lab was so much worse when it was lined with people. The Dora Milaje stood on one side, Jabari warriors on the other - barriers of red and spears, fur and stone. The heat from their bodies felt oppressive, their weapons and armor boxing Bucky in. 

And if _he_ felt like that...

Up ahead, the Tribal Council stood in a semi-circle around the compartment where Loki was kept, the bright and varied colors of their individual tribes offsetting the cold metal walls. Bucky followed General Okoye and T'Challa to their position. He could hear Loki's breath hissing in and out from his teeth and low, constant noises sounding in his throat. When Bucky neared enough, he could see that Loki was hunched in an awkward crouch, sunken eyes flown wide and darting from person to person frantically. He noted Bucky's presence, but did not hold eye contact for long, too many threats present for him to settle.

A sour taste began to form in Bucky's mouth. He suddenly wasn't sure he wanted to be here for whatever was going to happen.

M'Baku stood closest to the cube, leaning against a large wooden staff and dressed in sharp-edged armor. He stared unblinkingly into the box while Loki quailed. "This is why such command of technology should not be left to children." 

T'Challa gave M'Baku a sharp look. "Take care. This place was created by my father, not Shuri."

M'Baku sneered. "And so he is also responsible for this." He shifted his staff, a noise of disgust sounding low in his throat. "This is not honor."

"King T'Chaka had no way of killing him," General Okoye argued. 

M'Baku's face pulled into a bitter smile. "There is damage here." He gestured with his staff at Loki, who flinched violently. "His neck, and his wrists. Yet you want me to believe he could not find a way to kill this man."

"What is done is done," T'Challa said, a hint of irritation finally coloring his voice. "We can only move forward from here."

M'Baku turned to Bucky, his eyes looking him up and down in assessment. "And you would have the White Wolf keep charge of him."

T'Challa folded his arms. "If he agrees." And probably the way he made eye contact with Bucky at that point was meant to be reassuring, but it just made him feel more put on the spot. 

M'Baku suddenly slammed his spear into the floor, sending Bucky on high alert. In the compartment, Loki cried out and clamped his hands tightly over his ears. One of the Jabari came forward from the wall, holding out another wooden staff.

General Okoye scowled at the weapon, her voice sharp. "What do you think you are you doing?"

M'Baku took the second staff in his free hand. "I want to test how well those restraints will hold."

Bucky felt his hackles rise. Loki still had his hands pressed into his ears, his haunted gaze directed somewhere in the vicinity of M'Baku's knees.

"We are not torturing him," T'Challa said.

M'Baku's face creased in offense. "It says more about you than me that those are the first words you would say."

"He can't attack anyone with Kimoyo Beads," Bucky broke in.

M'Baku turned a severe look on him, clearly angry that he'd spoken out of turn.

Bucky didn't back down, the coil of anger in his gut growing stronger. "The gauntlets will drop him when he tries. He can't hurt you."

"If you are finished," M'Baku snarled. "You use different words to say the same thing three times." He held up his wrist, covered in fur, but wearing no visible beads. "We have no use for vibranium in the mountains. And even if we did, I would simply remove it."

M'Baku tossed the spear down within Loki's reach. The air in the lab grew thick with tension, the Dora raising their weapons, the Jabari at the ready with their own spears. The unarmed Elders moved to stand at the far wall behind the warriors, looking unsurprised at this turn of events. Bucky's mind raced, taking in the number of bodies and weapons, including the one in the wall, and torn between which source exactly was worse.

"This is a poor arena," M'Baku said, eyes on T'Challa, the disdain in his voice unapologetic in its fervor, "but you - who speak of _no torture_ \- your people have broken his mind to this place. So we will proceed here. With permission, my king." 

T'Challa sighed. "This is not a good idea. Even with the effects of the heart-shaped herb suppressed by the gauntlets, his physical strength would be enhanced."

M'Baku's grin was all teeth. "Then maybe it will be a fair fight."

Bucky kept his protests back - agitating a superpowered imprisoned space god into violence seemed like one of the least safe plans ever presented to him - and he'd grown up with _Steve Rogers,_ perpetual developer of reckless plans. 

Loki stared at the staff on the ground in front of him, then at the warriors surrounding him. Bucky knew he wasn't stupid, even in his feral state. Loki's best case scenario if he attacked would be that M'Baku beat him down. Even if he somehow managed to win, and managed to follow that up by killing everyone in this room, he would still remain trapped down here. Alone. 

And the worst case scenario was that they decided he was too much of a threat, and put him back into stasis.

T'Challa gave a reluctant nod, and that was the signal. The Dora instantly moved to create a wall around the other Elders, raising their vibranium spears and magnetizing them together as shielding.

M'Baku gestured with his weapon and his own men moved back to supplement the defense. "Pick it up," he said to Loki, performing a quick jab with the blunt end of his own staff.

Loki snarled at the contact, curling down as if he could escape. His hands twitched from his ears and gripped at the staff on the ground. He didn't otherwise move, even when M'Baku again tried to roughly prod him into action. Loki's teeth bared, his eyes filling with terror and hate.

M'Baku abruptly let out a loud growling yell that was echoed by the Jabari. Loki cringed at the noise and looked like he wished the walls would swallow him. Bucky held himself in check by the skin of his teeth, but his fist was balled and his legs remained ready to shoot him forward. This couldn't go on.

M'Baku stepped closer. His voice was a jarring bark of command. "The staff! Defend yourself!"

Loki's eyes went to Bucky, filling with a strange light before they reset onto M'Baku. His chest heaved, but Bucky saw the lines of his body change and coil.

M'Baku was relentless. "Are you so much a coward now that will you not even fight back?" He moved forward with his weapon in a quick stabbing motion. 

Loki grabbed at the blunt end of the staff before it could hit him again. In the next instant he pushed back with such convulsive violence that M'Baku was sent flying across the room. He fell into the Dora's spears, and then the floor. 

Bucky sucked in a breath, ready for M'Baku's enraged response. Loki likewise was staring forward with wide eyes and harsh breaths, his fingers digging at the gauntlets as if he had a hope of getting them off before someone increased the settings and trapped him into stillness.

What came instead of retaliation, was laughter. 

M'Baku's face was creased in mirth as he moved to his knees and then to his feet, raising his chin as he regarded Loki with new respect. "So he does understand." Though he stepped forward and reclaimed his spear, he didn't move to attack again. 

T'Challa's own posture remained tight with dislike. He looked at Loki cowering in his box and then away. "I trust you are satisfied."

"Yes," M'Baku proclaimed. He turned on Bucky. "Now it is your turn."

Bucky frowned, heart still pounding in the aftermath of Loki's defense. "I'm not gonna fight him," he said.

M'Baku shook his head. "No, of course not. You are going to fight _me._ The king has informed us that you are to be his keeper. And I've agreed on one condition - that we test your ability to perform this task."

T'Challa nodded at one of the Dora. She came forward with a black box, holding it in front of Bucky. He felt his vision narrow and the blood rush in his ears as it was opened.

Inside, cushioned, was a vibranium arm, inset with colors of gleaming gold. Shuri's work.

"No," Bucky said, backing away in an abrupt step, viciously ignoring the sudden longing that filled him.

Thankfully, the Dora warrior holding the box immediately shut it and pulled it away without a word. 

"I thought I would offer," T'Challa said, a hint of apology in his voice.

M'Baku made no comment on the exchange, and gestured to the elevator. "Come, then. We should take this to the surface."

Bucky swallowed. "I don't want to fight you," he tried.

M'Baku approached him, expression serious. His armor smelled like wood smoke. "We need some measure of your skill before the Jabari will allow your unsupervised involvement."

Bucky's eyes moved to Loki, and found him angled away from them with his hands again clamped over his ears, breaths shuddering out in little hitches. He thought he saw a glint of wetness roll down one cheek before the head dipped and black hair obscured his view.

General Okoye made a sound in her throat. "Enough," she said. "If his heart is not into the task, we will not force him."

Bucky clenched his jaw, and picked up the staff still near Loki's hands. Immediately, he once again got to experience the _glorious_ feeling of all eyes on him while he stood there awkwardly. 

He shrugged. "I said I didn't want to - I didn't say I wouldn't do it."

\----------

M'Baku was a large man, and Bucky had long appreciated that fact ever since he'd managed to get on the Jabari Tribe leader's bad side. It didn't intimidate him. 

Height and width could give a combatant strength, but it also made them an easier target. It left the vital areas of the torso vulnerable to attack, especially when coming from an upwards angle. 

If Bucky moved with focus on speed instead of strength, if he could manage to disarm M'Baku, he knew he could avoid being hit by those large fists. He just had to keep his movements fluid, keep his awareness of the fact he had no metal arm to fight with clear in his mind.

Their audience stood in a wider circle than they had in the lab. Bucky tested the weight and balance of the staff he'd been given, made it seem like he was going to rely on the weapon a lot more for offense than he planned.

When M'Baku came at him, shouting, Bucky dodged down and around, the dirt flying up in clumps as he launched away. 

M'Baku followed him, and this time Bucky lifted the staff to stop the downward swing. The blow vibrated through his arm and shoulder and in sharp bursts down his aching spine. He let the pain out in a yell, delivering a low kick to M'Baku's torso that forced them apart. 

Bucky's adrenaline began to run in full force now as they circled. His mind careened through the best shots for maximum blunt force trauma. _No,_ he thought over his rageful instincts. _He's not your enemy. He's not trying to kill you. Don't use full force._

Bucky parried the next series of blows, coming up from beneath and forcing each of M'Baku's swings to go wide, until he felt his anger finally boil over and delivered a strong jab into M'Baku's stomach. _Get back. Don't do this to me._

__

__

M'Baku stumbled back, then nodded in approval. "There, White Wolf, show me your teeth."

M'Baku charged, coming at him with continuous ferocity, while Bucky went back to putting most of his effort into dodging and weaving, still wary of putting his full effort into the fight, but knowing that it was only a matter of time.

"This is not a dance," M'Baku eventually complained.

"It's not a conversation, either," Bucky shot back. _You're a warrior, but you probably don't have constant thoughts about the best angles and force to use to break the bones in someone's neck. I can't let that happen._

M'Baku hooted loud enough that Bucky felt it ring in his ears. This time, the Jabari leader leapt forward and brought his staff down with one hand and with the other used his long reach to tear Bucky's staff away when he raised it in defense. Then M'Baku slammed the long side of his weapon against Bucky's ribs, shoving the breath from his lungs in a grunt and staggering him to the side.

M'Baku sneered. "How? How will we be able to trust your capabilities when you would just stand in the dirt and die rather than resist attack?"

Bucky breathed in deep through the pain, a red haze overtaking him. He moved with the next incoming blow, using his hand to pull himself up on the staff and kick M'Baku in the face hard enough that he lost his hold on the weapon and they both fell into the dirt. 

Bucky threw the staff out of reach and quickly moved into a crouch, every muscle ready to continue the fight, to claw and punch and struggle.

M'Baku came up, his eyes calculating as he moved to his feet. "That is enough," he said, to looks of surprise from most watching. "I do not want you injured so that you are incapable of performing the task at all."

Bucky did not relax. His muscles burned, eager for more violence.

"I see that your back pains you," M'Baku said, not the least bit intimidated by Bucky's failure to stand down. He gestured at the spot where the missing arm should have been. "Why do you keep handicaps that your friends could fix?"

 _So no one gets hurt,_ Bucky thought, suddenly fully aware of where he was. He didn't answer M'Baku, instead trying to figure out where the Wakandans stood on his performance. General Okoye still did not look happy, but the others, including M'Baku, had a quiet sort of satisfaction in his display. It was unnerving, being around people who required visible confirmation of his continued use as a weapon. He didn't like the echoes of familiarity in the feeling.

"We will keep the arm in the lab for your use, should you decide you want it," T'Challa said. "Shuri has been gathering together supplies to make the space more livable. She should be here by the end of the day."

"Thanks," Bucky said, still feeling wrong-footed at this turn of events. 

M'Baku wasn't finished, his expression critical. "I agree to your placement as guard, with reservations. What is underground in that lab has been defeated and will never again threaten the safety of Wakanda. But know that it is idiocy to refuse weapons and sacrifice the defense of your own life in this task. We will be watching, so we will know if you fail."

"You mean watching from Jabari Land, where you're also sacrificing defense by still refusing to use vibranium," Bucky pointed out.

M'Baku stilled, and his men held their spears tighter. Bucky stood firm as he felt the potential for violence grow thick on the air. Fighting was like breathing for the Jabari, as much as it had been ( _was_ ) for the Winter Soldier. He knew it wouldn't take much to provoke them.

But he was still angry that they'd provoked him first. They'd wanted him to remember and prove what he was - a vessel for violence. As if he'd forgotten. As if he wasn't sick with the knowledge day in and day out.

M'Baku stepped closer, standing tall, his necklace of sharp stone in line with Bucky's face. He glared down his nose. "Tread carefully, White Wolf. You have no pack here. Do not forget your place."

Then he turned his back and slammed his spear down with a cry, his men gathering around him as they moved off.

Bucky exhaled heavily. T'Challa was watching him with a frown, hand on his chin. The Dora had lowered their spears, but were still positioned around the other Elders in a protective line. 

Guilt and shame flooded over the brief charge of energy Bucky had felt, the quiet rage that had been stirred inside him. He directed his gaze into the dirt, and forced his posture into careful passiveness, hoping his mind would soon follow.

"You are lucky, White Wolf," T'Challa eventually said. "M'Baku must be in a good mood today."

Bucky looked up sharply in surprise. 

T'Challa smiled reassuringly. "We will leave you to your post. If you require a break at any time, just let us know and I will spare some warriors."

Bucky nodded, thinking for the hundredth time that he wasn't ever going to get a grasp on the faith that people still managed to have in him.

But he was also starting to think that maybe that didn't mean he couldn't feel at least a little grateful about it.

\----------

Bucky relieved the remaining Dora and Jabari down in the lab. As he stood there, staring at the computers and the metal walls - as an ever increasing impending realization of just what he'd agreed to sunk into his bones and blood like concrete - he again wondered what the hell he was doing. 

Loki was still in his box, was still in that goddamn cubic pit with its walls yawning around him like the mouth of a beast. He was sitting with his knees up to his chest. He looked shaky, skin tinged its usual sickly grey, face hidden behind his long legs as he rocked like a metronome, shoulders quivering in sob-like motions.

"Hey," Bucky said, filled with unease at the sight.

Loki did not look up or stop his movements. Bucky tried to get his attention again, to no success, and ran his hand over his hair with a deep breath when he realized that Loki was completely zoned out. Bucky strained to think of a way to fix it, eventually moving over to Shuri's speakers to restart her music. 

The lab was filled with a relaxing and sustained rhythm once again. Bucky immediately felt better as it covered over the distressing noise of Loki's soft, shuddering inhalations and filled the oppressive quiet around them.

Then he stood in tense anxiety, and waited for something to change.

When it came, it came gradually. Loki's rocking unconsciously slowed over the next several minutes to match the beats of the music, and then eventually he paused completely. When he slowly raised his head to stare at his surroundings in a muddled fashion, Bucky felt a tightness in his core unravel.

Loki's eyes found Bucky. His confusion abruptly faded and the usual fear and suspicion on his face lessened as his expression was penetrated by a weak ember of hope.

Bucky stretched out his aching back, and grabbed his chair, careful to not let the legs scrape against the ground. He moved it closer to Loki's cube and wearily sat down, rotating his shoulders. 

Bucky didn't say anything at first, just kept staring at the dirt on his knees from the fight. He attempted to soak in more of the loop of music to keep his own mind from cutting him to ribbons.

Eventually, he looked up at Loki with a wry smile that he figured probably looked as strained as it felt. "Looks like we're stuck with each other."

Loki's pale throat worked, his eyes directed at Bucky with intense focus, disregarding the fresh tear tracks that lined his cheeks. "Not. Stop."

"No," Bucky said, glad at least he had that news to give. "You won't get locked back up in that thing."

Loki shuddered in relief. He let his head press back down into his legs, gripping them close in comfort as he rocked forward.

"You just let him hit you," Bucky noted softly. 

The silence stretched again. Loki breathed quietly, now unmoving except for the gentle brush of his thumb over a bound finger, subtle and repetitive.

"Why did you take so long to fight back?" Bucky asked, though he thought he already knew the answer.

Loki lifted his head, and turned his face to the side, gazing listlessly at the walls of his box. He held his hand out and made a slow fist. "Rules," he said. 

So he'd taken what Bucky had said very seriously when he'd told Loki not to attack anyone. But Bucky had also told him to do what he was ordered. He hadn't gone after M'Baku until given an explicit command. 

"That was a good move," Bucky said, glad for yet more proof that there was still a mind in there behind the defensive terror. "It was smart."

Loki did not respond, or make eye contact, a deep exhaustion clouding his face. He looked like someone had drained out everything inside him that would have ever given him life or happiness. The most lively-looking thing about him was the dark scar bisecting his chest, filling the space it marred with pigment that was absent everywhere else, save for the redness still at his neck and wrists. The paler Loki had grown, the more it began to look almost like a parasite had attached into his body. It made Bucky unpleasantly aware of his own scar tissue, in and below the skin, always pulling at the flesh around it.

Loki looked like he was fading out again, his eyes losing focus. Bucky wondered if maybe now that he knew he was out of immediate danger, he would finally rest. 

If either of them would.

\----------

Shuri showed up in the evening with tons of supplies on another pair of carts. She was wearing casual clothes - a simple black top and skirt with accents of gold and orange - instead of one of her lab outfits, which made Bucky absurdly pleased. He'd been enamored with most of her science since she'd fixed him, but just then he didn't think he could take staring at even one more brain or body scan. 

Not to mention that Shuri was looking like she'd managed at least a few hours of sleep. Her eyes and movements held energy, and Bucky didn't ever again want to see that fade as she spiraled into guilt and anguish-driven sleep deprivation. 

She looked Bucky and Loki over with a keen eye, before relief filled her expression. "T'Challa told me things went all right, but I was still worried," she said. "He has awful standards for what he considers good."

"Things are as fine as they can be," Bucky said, trying to mask how foggy his brain felt. He indicated Loki with his hand. "He still hasn't come out of there."

Shuri exhaled through her nose, her shoulders sagging. Then she gathered herself and slowly approached the compartment in the wall. Loki brought up his head when she came close, fingers tightening against his legs.

"Hello again," she said, carefully gentle. "I brought you a bed. And some new clothes, if you would like them."

Loki didn't respond, only watched her through half-lidded eyes. 

Shuri lifted up her hand to display a tablet. "Also this. It has books, and movies." She went on to explain the controls, and Loki's eyes followed her hand movements, a crease between his brow deepening the longer she spoke. Eventually, she set the tablet down within easy reach just outside his box.

Loki took several breaths, then licked his lips. "Why."

Bucky braced himself for Loki asking again why they wouldn't kill him, but he seemed to have meant to have stopped there.

Shuri's voice was kind. "We want your mind to heal. That will be harder if you stay in there and only have this one to keep you company." She jerked her thumb at Bucky. "He's not the best conversationalist."

Bucky sighed, but couldn't very well argue her point. 

Loki blinked rapidly, his focus going to the tablet and back to her face. Then he pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes, and hunched over. He didn't speak again.

Shuri tried to keep back her crestfallen expression, with little success. She gave Bucky a strained smile. "Come on. I will help you put on some clean clothes, and then you can help me set things up."

\----------

Bucky spent the rest of the evening helping Shuri organize the new furniture she'd brought for the lab, including new and better speakers. Between the relaxing tones of the music, the easy motions of work, and Shuri's gentle digs and exclamations when he misunderstood her exact vision for the placement of things to maximize all possible space, Bucky found that if he didn't think too hard on the fact that he was still underground, some of the edge of his anxiety drifted away. 

And thank god she'd brought them beds. Bucky knew he would need to sleep soon, his body now in such a state that he didn't even feel hunger when he normally would. There was a disconnect happening in his brain, a vague acknowledgment of the weariness and pain he felt, but they were shoved into the background while his body continued through the motions.

Loki had dropped his hands and changed positions as time went on, his legs now underneath him as he knelt, his shoulder propped against the wall to keep him upright. He watched them work through eyes slitted with tiredness, every so often compulsively pinching at the gauntlets, or rubbing at the edges of his chest scar. The red skin around his neck and wrists from the previous restraints had begun to fade to a pale pink.

When Shuri and Bucky were finished setting up the room, the old computers and their displays were gone. In their place were several screens that stretched from floor to ceiling and clung to the walls by a magnetic mechanism, displaying a crystal clear feed of the land above. Immediately the room felt larger, the illusion of open space overtaking the wall, and Bucky was eternally thankful for Shuri's foresight.

There was now an actual fridge for food storage, and even some potted plants. Several of the lights had also been replaced, a dimmer function in place that Bucky could control when he wanted to sleep.

In contrast to the response to the new screens, the knowledge of what the ability to turn the lights down entailed had abruptly and inexorably made his leg muscles tighten. The claustrophobic feeling returned as he again was forced to face the fact that he was going to be spending most of his time down here if he wanted to help. The farm, the kids, even the damn goats - that wasn't something that was in his immediate future any longer. 

And he knew that even if he'd decided to quit right then, to run all the way back to his hut by the river, his mind wouldn't come with him. It would stay down here in the lab, just as stuck as Loki.

Shuri seemed to notice his melancholy. She stayed for a little while longer to keep him company, to keep him distracted and show him some of her more recent favorite videos on the internet. He engaged with her for as long as he could but eventually he started to tune them out, his mind only focusing on her voice as a soothing background noise.

"Bucky. Bucky!"

Bucky blinked and cleared his throat. "Sorry," he said. "It's been a long..." He trailed off, not actually knowing what time it was. Or when he'd last slept.

"You should get some sleep," Shuri said. "I have some projects I need to work on back at the Great Mound. I will stop by with dinner tomorrow."

"What about your work with the science and information program?" Bucky asked, suddenly concerned that she was putting her life on hold for this.

"I can do online seminars for now," Shuri said. "Do not worry about me. And I still want to analyze the rest of my scans of his physiology. I took some new ones when you weren't looking."

Bucky winced in chagrin. "I'm sorry."

"You, among all people, have nothing to apologize for," Shuri declared. She grasped at his arm, gave him a little shake. " _Get some sleep._ I will see you tomorrow."

After she was gone, Bucky laboriously moved to his feet and walked over to finally turn off the music. He turned to Loki, who was staring off to the side with eyes that looked nearly bleached of color, expression dead.

 _God._ Bucky wondered if he'd get a response or if Loki had checked out again. "Hey."

There was a slight tightening of the line between Loki's eyes, but he remained unmoving, hands limp between his legs.

"I'm going to bed," Bucky said, then amended, "or, at least, I'm going to try." He pointed to the outhouse. "This is the restroom, if you need it. I don't know if they have toilets in space, but I figure you must have needed to use one at some point during your attempted earth takeover."

Now Loki's eyes slid over to him, but he moved no other muscle, not even to turn his head. It was unnerving, how still he was, after all the constant motion and shuddering since he'd been freed.

"I'm dimming the lights," Bucky warned, and the room immediately took on a more orange-tinged hue as he changed the settings. 

He forced himself to lay down, to not check on Loki anymore. He needed to sleep if he was going to be in any kind of condition to deal with this crap even halfway properly. Lassitude quickly overtook his limbs - the bed and the pillow were both firm, for which he was thankful. Shuri knew he liked to sleep on his back, had probably put in adjustments for comfort.

Eventually, at some point, he managed to drift off.

He woke up to Loki's hand around his throat.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! Hopefully it's not glaringly rough, I was a bit subpar in the brain-power while making edits. We should be back to normally scheduled (Saturday) updates after this. 
> 
> Also uh, **big warning in this chapter for some extra roughness in the whump department.** I don't want to spoil with specifics, but I've changed the overall warnings accordingly.

_Fuck!_

The hand on his throat was strong, and felt as immovable as a steel restraint. Bucky barely managed to hold himself in check, to not go straight for the tender-looking scar on Loki's chest and force a withdrawal reflex. But his muscles still bunched, still prepared for explosive movement, his thoughts circling on the phrase _get off, get off of me_ -

The eyes above him were like ice. This close he could see every detail of the fissures of bruise-like coloring that inked beneath translucent skin. Loki's gaze bore deep into him, unwavering, his lank hair bracketing their faces, his long legs folding him into a crowding crouch over Bucky's body. His breaths were steady, coming from his nostrils and drifting over Bucky's face in tickling wafts that made Loki seem all the more the predator. The tension in Loki's body had increased to match Bucky's - not hurting, but ready to push back and overpower. Ready to squelch any resulting struggle.

And Bucky _did_ want to struggle, his instincts in overdrive and screaming the threat of the body that hovered over him.

But...he didn't. He held back, even as his heartbeat raced, because Loki looked _fucking awful_ , his eyes too wild and haunted, lids tight and cheeks raised, his lips on the verge of retracting. He was trying to cover it up with anger, but the way his face muscles contracted was too off for complete rage - he was in pain and attempting to hide the weakness. A scared animal that couldn't flee trying its hand at the fight response.

Bucky knew how that felt. _God_ , did he know how that felt.

He also knew what it was like to have that kind of behavior ruthlessly, brutally punished. 

( _"Wipe him."_ )

Bucky swallowed against the grip on his throat, fought to keep himself still, to not trigger the beads to freeze Loki so he could escape his position. He knew Loki could feel his pulse pounding in his neck. 

Somehow, Bucky managed to keep his voice even. "Are you hallucinating?"

A tremor ran through the hand on his throat. The pale eyes set angrily at the edges, but the rest of Loki's face was like stone.

"You heard Shuri," Bucky said, trying for common sense, hoping that giving Loki a chance wouldn't make this end where it was currently heading. "You know that the second your brain sends the signal to hurt me, the gauntlets will trigger."

Loki's nostrils flared and his breath quickened, his eyes darting to the two sets of beads around Bucky's wrist. If he was contemplating a physical removal, he'd be disappointed. The Kimoyo Beads and their new gauntlet-synced matching set were designed to only be removable by the wearer's consent, barring amputation or similar violence. 

But that wasn't information Bucky exactly wanted to volunteer. Loki didn't need any ideas.

Thankfully, Loki didn't go for them. He didn't loosen his hold, either, the metal rings of the gauntlets pressing against Bucky's jugular. 

"So what now," Bucky asked, now that he was more certain Loki could understand him. 

Loki's gaze flashed back to Bucky. His body bore down in increments, thin and powerful. The hand on Bucky's neck was beginning to tremble in earnest, Loki's face developing a telling crease. He was hanging onto his composure by a thread. 

Bucky pushed up against the hand on his neck, slow but firm. He ignored the thrill of fear that stirred in response to the added pressure. 

He spoke lowly, forced confidence into his voice. "Or did you even think that far ahead?"

All at once Loki threw himself off of Bucky, staggering back until he was braced against the big metal outhouse, gasping in air like his lungs wouldn't fill. His legs shook beneath him and his back hunched as he fought to keep himself upright. His eyes were once again fixed on the beads around Bucky's wrist.

"Easy," Bucky said, heart still pumping and adrenaline rushing in readiness. "I'm not gonna trigger them." He was careful to not make any quick movements as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed. He wondered how long he'd been asleep before Loki had finally crept from the wall to do - whatever he'd been planning. 

Bucky rubbed at his neck where the grip had been, erasing the echoes of the touch with his own, tried to hide how ready he still was to fight back. "So now we have one smart move, and two dumb ones. Gonna even it out, or are we going full stupid?"

Loki looked rooted to the spot. He also looked like he was going to fall on his ass any second. 

"I can't help you if you don't give me something," Bucky said, the heat now gone from his voice.

Loki hesitated for a moment longer. Then he opened the door to outhouse and all but fled inside, slamming the door behind him.

Bucky stood, nonplussed, before he ran his hand over his aching forehead. _Guess he does pee._

He took the opportunity to clean out the paper and bottles and fruit cores from the cube in the wall and replace them with more fruit and water. It was still the middle of the night, so he'd decided he'd wait to try out the new mini kitchen station Shuri had given them to create something a bit more substantial for them to eat. Keeping to a schedule was a technique he'd employed to keep himself going when he'd been on the run after escaping Hydra and his sleeping patterns had been erratic at best.

He forcefully settled himself back onto his bed and tried to ignore the thrill still swirling in his belly from being pinned and trapped.

At least now he knew that Loki could be reasoned with, that his responses weren't so far out of Bucky's experience that he couldn't at least try to redirect some of the aggressive behavior.

It would have stressed Bucky a whole hell of a lot to put Loki back into stasis to stop him, but if it came down to it, he still would have done it. Even if his mind was a shit to deal with, he'd survived too damn much to give it all up now. 

Loki came came back out when Bucky was rifling through the mind-boggling amounts of books accessible from his Kimoyo Beads, unable to settle on one so he just ended up reading title after title like that in of itself was a book. He looked up in time to see Loki, face bone-white, waver and collapse.

Bucky turned his beads off, but stayed where he was to not inspire panic. Loki blinked rapidly as he maneuvered himself so his back was to the outhouse. He looked drained again, brow lowered, the edges of pain drifting more fully into his expression now that the mask of anger had been cast off. 

Bucky grew more troubled the longer he watched. "Need help?"

Loki stilled with a wince. He shook his head, the least antagonistic reaction Bucky had seen him give yet. 

Bucky shrugged, taking the refusal for what it was. "Well, I'm not going back to sleep after that."

Loki jerked his head up, and then his eyes focused on the beads wrapped around Bucky's wrist. Immediately, new fear flashed and he attempted to rise.

Bucky stayed back and watched Loki struggle, didn't move forward to touch him in case that just set him off more. Eventually, Loki wore himself out and fell back down onto his heels with a frustrated noise, pale and sweating. 

"Go easy. It'll come back if you rest." Bucky actually had no idea if it would, but he'd feel worse if he just sat and observed Loki like he was some sort of overseer. Or scientist reviewing an experiment. "Your body's done fighting for now."

Loki breathed hard, a hand reaching up to glance over the scarring on his chest as he eyed Bucky warily, a swallow tightening his throat. 

Loki's constant fear was raking tension through Bucky just as well as his threats. "I'm not punishing you for that, if that's what you think," Bucky said, pulling his arm back and watching Loki's eyes lock to the movement. "You wouldn't have gotten far if you tried to attack anyway."

It took a while for Loki to settle. That particular seizing panic of finding yourself in enemy territory and your body so depleted of strength you were unable to move - that was another feeling Bucky knew well, on both sides of the fight. 

Loki did get a hold of himself, eventually, and looked mildly embarrassed in the aftermath, lip corners pulled taut. He glanced up at Bucky. "You." He paused with a rough noise. "Ah. You. Not. One." He gave a vague gesture. "Them."

Bucky worked the words through his mind, tried not just respond in the immediate confusion he felt and frustrate Loki enough that he pounded his head into the wall like he had the last time he'd spoken more than two words. "The Wakandans. No, I'm not one of them."

Loki's lips twisted, the urge to learn more clearly stymied by his inability to form words. He seemed to be taking in information just fine, if still running on a hair trigger of reactive stress. He licked his lips. "Why. You. Here."

"Here in Wakanda or here in this lab," Bucky asked.

Loki's mouth made to form the W but nothing came out. He ground his teeth with a heavy breath. "Both."

Bucky didn't answer for a long moment. "They helped me. I'm trying to return the favor."

The look Loki gave him stated very clearly that he was unsatisfied with the vagueness of that answer. He looked off to the box in the wall, his hand coming up to hover over the edge of the scarring on his chest.

"Does it hurt?" Bucky asked.

Loki looked at him with suspicion, his body going still.

Bucky shrugged, trying to signal his lack of threat. "That mark on your chest. It looks pretty nasty."

Loki dropped his hand and didn't answer. His eyes were once again becoming unfocused slits. 

Bucky activated his Kimoyo Beads again, and pretended to ignore Loki's flinch at the action. "Let me know when you're ready to talk."

 

\----------

 

Despite his words, Bucky did fade off again at some point. When he woke up, he found that Loki had managed to drag himself back to his cube, and was kneeling inside it, as if his body had forgotten any other way to be. He'd leaned one shoulder against a wall, his eyes closed, but his brow was furrowed and his thumbs slowly moved in gentle circuits around the rings locked over his fingers. The water and food Bucky had left for him had been consumed.

Bucky did a quick scan of the room, but saw nothing out of place. The new clothes and bed Shuri had brought for Loki remained untouched, as did the tablet. Bucky checked the video feed of the night on fast motion, just in case. It showed nothing but Loki making his pitiful way back to the cube once he'd realized that Bucky had fallen asleep.

So, night one, and no one had died - not the charge or the guard. That was good. 

When Bucky rose from the bed, Loki's eyes immediately opened. 

"Morning," he greeted as he stretched. "Get any rest?"

Loki exhaled heavily and frowned, his eyes narrowing before he turned them aside, his jaw clenched. He'd forced his hands to stop, instead resting them flat against his thighs, but Bucky could see the way they shook.

"Gonna take that as a no," Bucky said warily. Loki looked suddenly pissed off about something, but for the life of him Bucky couldn't guess what.

Loki's mouth stretched into a sharp smile, expression full of bitterness. He didn't meet Bucky's eyes. "No," he answered, and Bucky didn't really have a clue how someone could fill a single sound with so much biting disdain.

He forced down his irritation. "Anything I can do?"

That garnered a suspicious look, Loki's expression hardening. His hands twitched, one drifting up to his chest. "Why. Mock."

Bucky raised his eyebrows. "You think I'm making fun of you?"

Loki bared his teeth. It wasn't a pretty sight. 

Bucky sighed. "I'm not making fun of you." He'd need to remember to be clearer with his words, since Loki didn't have a lot to spare himself. "I'm just...you don't look very good."

Loki's brow drew together in confusion. He dropped his hand from the scar, throat bobbing as he averted his eyes, his lips closed and twisted in obvious resentment. 

Bucky frowned. He'd been doing pretty good, he'd thought, when it came to recognizing Loki's behaviors and where they'd come from, but this attitude shift was throwing him for a loop. Maybe it was a good sign - a sign some of the fear of the past days was fading enough that there was actual room for real anger. 

Or maybe he'd royally fucked up in some way he wasn't aware of yet. 

Instead of trying to pressure Loki into speaking more, Bucky moved to the small food corner Shuri had set up for them, including her own array of designed and incredibly useful self-powered cooking tools that were lined on magnetic shelves. He grabbed some water and scanned the available ingredients they had on hand with his Kimoyo Beads to get some recipes from the Wakandan database. Then he spent the next several minutes painstakingly trying to remind himself what each device did before he finally managed to set up what would hopefully become a pot of chai and warm mahamri. 

Fried dough and sugar probably wasn't the best thing for an ailing space god, but Bucky could care less about that. He wanted a peace offering, something a bit more substantial than just the meat and fruit he'd been offering. Of course, it was possible his cooking could just happen to turn out to be trash compared to whatever cuisine Loki was used to. Wasn't he supposed to be royalty or something?

Whatever. It would just mean more for him if Loki turned his nose up at it.

Loki's eyes narrowed at the fragrantly sweet food and drink when Bucky set it outside of his box, an expression of outrage, of all things, painting his features. It reminded Bucky of Steve on one of his more uncooperative sick days when they'd been kids.

And, like then, Bucky was getting pretty fed up. "Look, I'm not sure what your deal is, but I-"

Bucky's Kimoyo Beads lit up. Shuri was calling. 

He looked down at them and then back to Loki, who was staring at one of the walls of his box a little too intensely. 

Bucky opened his mouth, then shut it. What the hell was he supposed to say? Loki obviously didn't want to talk to him, that much was clear even with his trouble with words.

"Nevermind," Bucky muttered, and then answered Shuri.

She'd done her hair up in an elaborate coiling display, which meant _she_ at least must have been feeling better. "How did it go?"

Bucky held back a self-recriminating cringe. "Good. Maybe."

"Maybe," Shuri repeated, her tone cautious. 

Bucky's voice was dry. "He tried to strangle me, then I made him breakfast."

Shuri's eyebrows shot up. " _What?_ "

"It's fine," Bucky assured, quickly serious again. "He's probably still afraid I'll lock him back up. He's not too happy right now, and he's still having problems speaking more than one word at a time. I think he's hurting pretty bad."

When Bucky checked, Loki's eyes were on him in a blazing glare. 

"And he's definitely pissed at me," Bucky added. 

Shuri's face was clouded by disappointment. "I had hoped we could begin healing, now," she admitted. "These might be some unforeseen side effects developing from his containment. Would you mind - take some more scans with your beads and send them to me. I will look over him again to see if anything more is wrong. I have treated aphasia before, but I do not think his condition will be a common case."

 _Or if he will even agree to be treated,_ Bucky thought, then ignored the voice in his mind that clamored in with calling him a hypocrite. "I'll do that. And then...I think I need to go for a run," Bucky admitted, feeling somewhat like a failure. He hadn't even been here for 24 hours since assigned his post. But maybe a bit of separation for a small period each day would be good for him and Loki, since right now he only seemed capable of making him angrier.

Shuri nodded. "I will send a message to Okoye." When Bucky felt his face wince with the sudden spear of guilt, she said, "This is good. T'Challa was worried that you would perform your duties perfectly and at the expense of your health."

 _You mean he was worried I'd regress into a Winter Soldier-level of dedicated efficiency._ But all Bucky said was, "A lot of that going around."

"You better not be pointing the finger at me," Shuri said, expression offended. "How else would Wakanda stay running?"

Bucky shrugged. "I mean, your brother is the king-"

Shuri scoffed. "My point exactly! Most of his good ideas come from me. And Okoye. And Nakia. And our mother."

Bucky smiled, and felt a sad pang at the crowd of memories that reminded him what it was like to have a dynamic like that. "Point taken," he said.

\-----------

This time Bucky decided he would wait for the Dora to arrive down in the lab before he took off. Loki clearly knew what was going to happen, and though he shook with the knowledge, he didn't protest. He responded with a stubborn set to his jaw and complete silence when Bucky asked him if he had anything he wanted to say.

So, in the meantime, Bucky turned the music back on in hopes that it would help. He took Shuri's requested scans and then did some body weight exercises to try and encourage the start to the process that would drain the stress from his mind. He tried to convince himself that this was fine. It was better to establish this routine early, to get both of them used to it. It wasn't like Bucky would be gone for very long, or wouldn't spend every inch of his run thinking about how he needed to get back down here.

Loki's own weariness seemed to be what forced him to calm eventually. He alternated watching Bucky and dozing, still not bringing himself to full sleep and clearly suffering for it. Bucky would ask Shuri what she thought about his lack of sleep when she arrived with dinner in the evening. They weren't going to torture him, but there wasn't much they could do if Loki was going to torture himself.

The sound of the entrance opening had Loki coming wide awake and moving into a defensive huddle in a corner of his box. 

Bucky hopped up in readiness, taking a step onto the platform and thanking Ayo as she dismounted. She only made a noncommittal sound in response, and he knew she was of the same opinion of him as General Okoye.

Loki clung to the inside of the cube, his wide eyes following Bucky as he took the elevator out.

The fresh air and sudden heat of the Wakandan sun took some of the edge off of the clawing guilt. No matter how they dressed it up, the lab was still a metal room in the ground, its atmosphere so draining and constant that he'd stopped noticing how bad he felt being crushed by the oppressiveness of it.

He stared at the horizon, a deep ache as he was reminded of the farm by the river, the good that the work and the land and the kids had done for him. He'd thought he'd had it bad then, but that wasn't even a drop in the tank compared to what he was putting himself through now. 

But he hadn't felt like he'd been giving anything back, not really. 

He didn't run at first. He walked, letting the tall stalks of purple plume grass tickle him through his pants, basked in the warmth of the sun's rays on his skin. The sound of the falls in the distance called to him more strongly. He thought of cool water and a soothing feel of weightlessness taking pressure off his aching spine. 

He jogged off towards it.

 

\------------

 

He stayed longer than he meant to. Every time he'd told himself he needed to get back a sudden spear of panic had stolen his breath more than the water that muffled his world. He was finally forced to pull himself to the shore when Shuri called him, sitting on the rocks where he'd set his clothes to keep them from getting drenched. 

When he answered, what was left of his good mood vanished as screaming blasted from the beads. Loki's voice, long and agonized, sending Bucky's instincts into overdrive. 

Shuri's voice held a shrill edge. "Where are you?"

Bucky spoke quickly. "Near Warrior Falls. Not far."

She spoke to someone off to the side. "Stop - leave it alone - use your spear to keep him down." She turned back to Bucky. "Listen to me - there are medical supplies on my ship next to the hatch. I need you to load the platform with as much as you can and then bring them down."

Loki's scream again, making Bucky's anxiety cascade like a hail of bullets. "What the hell is happening?"

"Just hurry the fuck up!" Shuri barked, then hung up on him.

Bucky struggled to replace his clothes, staining them with mud in his haste and leaving the shoulder sash behind as he raced back to the lab. Shuri's ship was open when he arrived, and he found one of her carts and loaded it with instrument after instrument before pushing it along the uneven terrain and putting it on the elevator. He lowered it down, leaping from it before it even finished its descent, bracing as he pulled the cart down with him and landed in the lab. He took in the sight of Ayo and Shuri hovering over Loki, who was writhing on the ground at their feet. 

Shuri was staring at a display on her Kimoyo Beads. She got to her feet and beckoned him over. "Hurry! Help us get him on his back."

Bucky brought her the cart and then immediately grabbed at Loki's arm while Ayo reached over to grasp at his side, and the question of why Shuri and Ayo alone hadn't been able to do this was answered as Loki went rigid with another awful scream as soon as Ayo's hands made contact near his ribs. Bucky had to brace against a flailing arm, but Loki was moving slow, as if his limbs would not quite obey his commands. 

Shuri was restraining him with the Gauntlet Stabilizers, Bucky realized as bile rose. Not at full strength, just enough to limit Loki's movements so he couldn't properly fight them or escape.

They got him over onto his back, and at Shuri's orders pinned down his arms and shoulders, Ayo pressing the length of her spear over Loki's shins and magnetizing it to the floor to keep them in place.

"What the hell is going on?" Bucky asked, hoping this time he'd get an answer.

Shuri pulled a handheld device from the cart that she used to slice down the rest of Loki's torn tunic. It parted open over his thin torso and was pulled away to reveal the scar at his chest, black like an oil slick, had grown visibly in size.

Bucky got the strong sense he didn't want his hand to be in contact with Loki. He kept it where it was with effort.

"Fuck," Shuri hissed. "It _is_ spreading."

Bucky hadn't been gone _that long_ , how the _hell_ had it gotten this bad in that time. "I thought it was just a scar."

Shuri shook her head. "This is not anything I have ever seen before. There was something in the injury, but when I took scans before, it was not active. I only noticed it when I went over the ones you sent me."

Loki arched, throat working, and Bucky and Ayo had to bear down with all their weight to keep him pinned as Shuri performed a scan over his torso. 

Loki's wild eyes found Bucky, his forehead gleaming with sweat as his breaths released in urgent puffs. "Not...stop," he begged, words coming even harder as he worked against the gauntlets.

"We're not putting you back in stasis," Bucky said firmly, meeting Shuri's eyes when she sent him a sharp look.

She nodded back, and her eyes widened from what she saw on the scan. "This is an old injury, but the black coloration is not scar tissue. The cells are not even _his_. And they are growing in power."

That didn't sound good. "Power, you mean like his green energy?"

"No," Shuri said, her voice quivering at the edges as her eyes raced over the information being relayed by her beads. "There was something else contaminating the injury. The heart shaped herb must have enhanced it with vibranium energy along with the rest of him when he took it. It was forced into dormancy by the original stabilizers, but now that I have refined the restraints to the frequency of his energy alone it has been allowed to grow out of control. And it is _mutating._ " 

Bucky swallowed, thought of all the times he'd noted how _wrong_ the scar had looked on Loki's chest. He'd just thought it was some alien thing to do with Loki himself. "How do we get it out?"

Shuri adjusted the device she'd used to remove Loki's tunic. "Hold him. It's weakened his flesh at the worst of it."

Bucky felt his blood chill, remembering Loki's visceral reaction to Ayo just touching the scar. "We said we weren't going to torture him."

Shuri met his eyes. She spoke deliberately. "Listen to me carefully, because I am only explaining this once. We are working on a time limit and I cannot afford to be delayed by you arguing my methods. The infecting cells are multiplying exponentially and overtaking his tissue and creating lesions and nerve endings as they do. If they are allowed to spread further, they will do the torturing for us. They may have already penetrated his organs." She swallowed. "If I take out this, the source, it could slow it down considerably. Otherwise, the only way to stop it _will_ be to put him back into the same stasis as before."

Loki stuttered out a breath that sounded too much like a whimper. "No." He'd thought Bucky was _mocking_ him when he'd asked if the scar hurt the night before - had he thought they already knew about this?

Bucky breathed in deeply and tightened his grip on Loki's shoulder. He nodded at Shuri. "Okay."

Shuri lowered the device, and the ensuing screams raked Bucky's ear drums until he thought they would bleed. 

Shuri's body was tense and sweat had begun to build at her forehead, but her hands were steady. "Bast help me," she ground out. 

Loki howled until he ran out of breath, then howled again. Bucky felt long fingers close over his bicep, a strong grip clamp down. He almost worried Loki would activate the beads by accident, trigger them to lock him up completely - but this wasn't an attack. It was desperation.

Ayo gave Bucky a sharp look when she noticed, but he shook his head to prevent her intervention.

Shuri continued in small incisions over the next several minutes, the relaxation music in the background an odd counter in the moments of silence between piercing cries of pain.

 _Pass out,_ Bucky thought at Loki urgently, ignoring the growing throb in his arm. _God, just pass out already._

Loki didn't pass out, though his struggles weakened further. When Shuri pulled off the chunk of tissue she'd been cutting into, Loki's pallid face contorted. Bucky signaled to Ayo to release her hold and rolled his upper body onto its side just as he vomited onto the lab floor.

Shuri wiped the back of her hand over her brow. "That is the first part."

Loki moaned. 

Bucky swallowed back his own nausea at the scent of bile now pervading the room. "First part?"

Shuri nodded, breathing hard. "I said it is spreading exponentially. I need to remove as much of it as possible before I can head back to the Design Group and develop a new method of combating the proliferation of the invading cells." She steadied herself, widening her kneeling stance. "Get him on his back."

Loki let out a soft noise. "Nn-" He broke off, pressing his forehead into the floor, shuddering.

Shuri's face crumpled. "I am sorry." She rubbed her hand over Loki's back, between his quaking shoulders. Her voice was thick with tears. "You may hate me afterwards. If I could anesthetize you, I would. I did not mean for this to happen." 

Grimly, Bucky met Ayo's eyes. She nodded, and put her hands on Loki. 

They pushed him down.

Loki's breaths came in frantic spasms.

Shuri activated her device.

The screams began again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this chapter a little early! It's a bit quieter than some of the others. (And no cliffhangers, this time.) I am intending for the next chapter to be up next Saturday (the 5th) - but as always, you can keep an eye on my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/anamelessdragon) for updates. Who knows, maybe I'll write A LOT during this upcoming three day weekend and there'll be a bonus chapter! (But no promises, yeesh.)

Bucky almost didn't hear Shuri when she finally called him off. He'd retreated deep into his mind, keeping only his body engaged with the task of pinning Loki to the floor.

There was still scarring on Loki's chest, but the core of black, the masses that had appeared at his front and back, those had been removed. Shuri had kept digging as much as she could, using different tools and cursing when she ran up against the godly durability of Loki's uninfected tissue and was prevented from searching deeper. At one point Bucky had tuned back in to her lowly commenting about how she wish she had something strong enough to crank Loki's ribs apart, and that had been the only thing he'd taken in for a while. 

He didn't know how long he and Ayo had held Loki down. He only knew that with each passing minute of awareness he'd thought - _okay, it shouldn't be longer now, it can't be much longer, god it has to end soon_. But the time had stretched, the copper scent of blood and meat and viscera clogging Bucky's nostrils. And Loki...Loki had screamed and wept and moaned beneath their hands, on and on and on. 

Now Loki was quiet. He trembled and stared at the ceiling with tears streaming from his wide eyes. His limbs remained where they'd been positioned even though he had been released from both the physical restraints and the slowing of the gauntlets. His body was tensed, and he looked as if he was afraid to move. As if he was expecting them to start in on him again at any moment.

Bucky helped Ayo and Shuri clean up, and then slammed himself inside the outhouse so he could vomit. The noises of Shuri's tools and Loki's cries were still ringing in his ears.

He splashed cold water on his face at the sink, and rinsed the taste of bitter acid out of his mouth. He was going to need another shower soon - the relentless anxiety had made him sticky with sweat, and his body and clothes were still splotched with dried mud.

He found a mess of bruises at his bicep, varying shades of dusky purple where Loki had held him. There were darker reddened marks where the metal from the gauntlets had sharply cut into the skin. The limb was stiff, but functional - the damage only superficial.

Shuri looked drained but calm when he exited, sitting on her heels next to Loki and staring into her Kimoyo Bead display. Her eyes were still red, but her tears had faded. 

Ayo was on her feet, spear in hand, even her normally unwavering countenance looking softened by relief. 

Loki had gone limp on the ground. He was still awake, but his eyes were dull and unaware. His fingers twitched sporadically at his sides. 

Between the remaining scars, Loki's chest looked like a fresh coat of paint had been brushed on. In other circumstances, Bucky would have been fascinated to learn how the vibranium grafting technology worked. Instead, he was distracted by the complete horror screaming through his mind in flashes of memories long past, his thoughts saturated by drills and saws and blood. 

_("You are to be the new fist of Hydra.")_

Shuri looked up at Bucky. Her lips stretched into an unsure smile for only a brief moment before it faded. "How are you?" she asked, her eyes alight with concern when she caught sight of his arm.

 _Falling apart, but what else is new._ Bucky's responding smile felt just as weak. "I'm fine. You're the one who had to spend all that time cutting into him." He worked his fingers into the tense and aching muscles behind his neck, impressed at Ayo's continual perfect posture despite the fact she had to be just as sore. "Did the surgery work?" _Please god let it have worked._

Shuri sighed unhappily. "For what I intended? Yes. But there are many areas I was not able to reach. Small pockets of lesions that will spread the longer they are left unchecked. The largest section of the contaminating cells has been removed, as was anything else I could get to around it, so the danger is less for now." 

Bucky knelt next to Loki and forced himself to look at his charge. There was no emotion visible on Loki's face, and somehow that was scarier than all the previous constant fear and anger and weariness. He looked like someone had sucked out his soul and left behind a living husk.

This was what Bucky had signed up for. It wasn't a war and there was really only one life at stake, but that fact didn't serve to hearten him. 

"This is my fault," Shuri said, a verbal echo to Bucky's own self-directed thoughts. 

He frowned as he gave her a sidelong look. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Shuri gestured at Loki's body. "If I had not designed the Gauntlet Stabilizers to act so specifically to his vibranium energy, the invading cells would have remained dormant. Instead, I not only released them from stasis, I weakened his own tissue to their infection. And now they are mutating far too quickly for me to adequately suppress them using the same method."

"You can't blame yourself for not accounting for some goddamn space disease," Bucky insisted. " _He_ sure as hell wasn't saying anything."

"I think he thought I already knew," Shuri said, her hands twitching like she wanted to reach out to Loki. "Remember when he first woke, and I explained the gauntlets - he asked why I wouldn't just kill him. Then he thought I wanted to use him."

 _"Slave,"_ Loki had said. Bucky shuddered. "And when you told him no, he, what - assumed we were just gonna sit back and watch while whatever this was ran its course and ate him from the inside out?"

Shuri shrugged. "It makes sense, doesn't it? The way he acted towards us, the confusion when we tried to help him."

"Maybe," Bucky said, not sure he'd be able to take any more additional detailing of his failings. "He could also just be a paranoid bastard." He sighed, staring at Loki's body and willing him to come out of his catatonia. " _Would_ it have killed him?" 

Shuri shook her head. "I do not know. He is _very_ strong. I believe that enhanced by the herb, his body would keep fighting to live on for a very long time. But the invading cells would continually consume and warp his tissue until his life became only suffering and his mind was gone." She tightened her lips. "That is what is causing the aphasia."

Bucky swallowed down against the suddenly recurring nausea. "The scarring on his chest?"

"The cells that invaded him through it, yes." She raised her Kimoyo Beads, and a display of Loki's brain popped up. Tiny spots marring its surface were highlighted in a yellow glow. "See? Here in the frontal lobe. It must have been one of the first areas the cells spread to." Shuri's factual tone began to splinter and fade, tears building in her eyes again. "The lesions are small, but they will multiply further if they are left unchecked." A tear escaped and she cursed as she covered her eyes with a hand.

A hollow feeling began to stir in Bucky's gut. "Can it be fixed?"

Shuri tore down her hand and sucked in a steadying breath. "I can fix anything." Her tone was dismissive, yet the bite to her voice was subdued. "But I will need some time."

"Okay," Bucky said.

"I will attempt to perform adjacent work on a suitable painkiller." She paused, and her eyes were grave when she met Bucky's. "He may...deteriorate again, before I find a proper cure."

 _Fuck._ Bucky remembered Loki, even with the threat of undergoing surgery without anesthesia, _still_ begging to not have the alternative of being frozen again. "I figure it still has to be better than what was happening to him in that box," Bucky said.

"Yes," Shuri agreed, sounding uplifted by Bucky's reaction. He belatedly realized that she'd been worried about his judgment. "And I will do it. I fixed you, didn't I?"

"You did," Bucky said, refusing to give voice to the clamoring doubts and anxieties. She _had_ fixed him in all the ways that counted. 

It was just his own damn fault for not getting it to stick. 

\----------

Shuri stayed a while longer to map the spread of the lesions. She'd offered to have Ayo stay with Bucky, but he'd declined. He figured one torturer would be enough for Loki to contend with after his ordeal.

He was sure to thank Ayo, though, for her unwavering staunchness. 

"It was my duty," she answered, the first words Bucky had heard her speak since this all had began. She gazed at Loki. "Just as this is yours."

The words were pointed. Bucky nodded in understanding. He would do a better job of monitoring Loki from now on, to not let something as obvious as the amount of pain he'd been in to slip through the cracks. Loki had been _getting eaten alive_ by invading cells and had refused to speak up about it. What kind of people did he think were holding him?

 _The same kind of people as the ones that had no problem with leaving him down here._

Bucky wandered around the lab with agitated energy when he and Loki were again alone. He gathered empty water bottles and cleaned the spilled chai and discarded mahamri by Loki's box, evidence of the struggle that had happened while Bucky had been gone. 

He stared in frustration at the unused bed meant for Loki, covered in immaculately folded sheets and blankets. They came free easily when he pulled at them, angrily bunching fabric in his fist and crawling into the claustrophobic press of the cube. He carefully kept his exposed metal shoulder from bumping the sides as he lined the floor with sheets and blankets. Lastly, he positioned the oversized pillow so it stood tall against the wall that Loki seemed to favor. 

Loki could spend the rest of time in that box, but Bucky was going to make sure he damn well had more than five metal sides to comfort him. 

Bucky was sitting in his chair with his head down, focusing on the music coming through the speakers and trying to encourage his heartbeat to slow when Loki finally moved. A curled, shaking hand rose to his chest, pressing against the vibranium-infused grafts. Shuri had said Loki's healing would probably have made quick work of the wounds, but she was hoping adding in the synthetic material would give the infection less surface area to spread to. Loki breathed out in a stilted huff of air when his hand came in contact with it.

Bucky didn't bother asking if he was okay. He kept his voice pitched low. "You should put some new clothes on."

Loki shouted in a panic, scrambling weakly away before he collapsed into a heap, his ribcage pressing vividly against skin as his diaphragm worked hurriedly to fill and empty his lungs. 

Bucky winced. He moved himself off of the chair to sit on the ground, hoping it would make him seem less threatening. "I'm sorry. It's done for now." He rubbed his hand over his face as if he could wipe his memory of seeing Loki's bone and viscera. "So, that was something. You didn't mention you had some sort of alien pathogen eating you alive."

Loki stared at Bucky in incomprehension through frizzed and frayed hair as he shivered, torso naked against the metal floor. 

Bucky waited, but when a few minutes had passed to no change he moved to his feet. He picked up one of the tunics Shuri had brought for Loki. She'd clearly designed it herself - the fabric was light and soft, matching the basic look and color of the top Loki had been wearing when trapped, but embellished with shimmering golden interlocking rings that started at the shoulders and moved down over the sleeves. The pants that paired with it had the same pattern running down the sides of the legs. 

Loki cringed when Bucky approached, but some of the awareness was finally returning to his eyes. His gaze shot around the lab. Trying to remember where he was, or checking for Shuri?

His head snapped back to Bucky when he tossed the clothes onto the floor within easy reach. "Those are yours, if you want them."

Loki's hand went back to his chest, a fierce tremor vibrating through it. When he spoke his voice was raw and scratchy from his screams. "Cut. Out?"

Bucky activated his Kimoyo Beads to show Loki the scans of his body that Shuri had taught him to bring up so he could keep track. He paired it with the screens on the wall so the yellow marks that made up the lesions in Loki's body would be clearly visible at an expanded size. They echoed out in smatters from the area where the chest wound had been, like dust expanding outward from the rupture site of a blast radius. Throughout his body they became even less condensed, but dots here and there still randomly peppered his organs ( _his brain_ ) and his bones.

Bucky tried to keep the waver out of his voice. "Those yellow dots are the areas it's spread to. Shuri needs to find a way to actually get in past your body's tissue in those spots before she can operate."

Loki's eyes took in the information, before they fluttered shut and he hung his head. A line of defeat sloped his shoulders and back.

"Let me get you some water," Bucky said, needing to be active to distract himself. 

Loki was still ignoring the clothes, but he did take the bottle and drink down the water when offered. The grey tinge to his skin seemed to have faded, now instead just a sickly white. But the dark marks under his eyes were more pronounced than ever.

Bucky spoke again, hopeful now that it seemed like Loki was calming down. "Look, I know you don't like talking to Shuri - maybe not especially now that you had to go through that - but if there's any information you have that can help us help you..."

Loki was shaking his head even before Bucky finished, eyes filling with tears. He glared in Bucky's direction. "Not. Stop." He pointed at the display on the wall, and then his own body. "Failed."

"Shuri didn't fail," Bucky said, unable to keep the irritation from his voice. "She's still working on it."

"No," Loki grated out. "Me."

Bucky paused. "You're saying _you_ failed."

Loki breathed out, a tear escaping to fall down his face. He didn't acknowledge it.

"Failed at what?" Bucky asked.

Loki brought his hand up and made a grasping motion at his chest, then pretended to eat an invisible object.

"That's why you stole the herb," Bucky realized. "To fight whatever was inside you."

Loki bared his teeth. "Blood. Ah. Blood. Curse."

"Is a blood curse something you have to worry about in space?" Bucky imagined with a chill that whatever diseases that could take out a being that was essentially labeled as a god had to be just as god-like. 

Loki shook his head and pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes. Bucky wondered if he had been doing that all this time because the lesions in his brain were causing him pain.

"Something got into your blood?" Bucky tried, unwilling to let that be the end of it, not this time. He really needed to get some of that patented Steve Rogers stubbornness to coat his actions for as long as he could manage.

Loki growled. He let his hands fall and lowered his head in concentration. "Wound," he said eventually. "Stab." His hand motioned to his chest. "Other. Blood...in. Ah. Inside. Curse." 

"You were stabbed," Bucky repeated. "And something else's blood went in and infected you."

Loki nodded. Instead of looking relieved that Bucky had got it, his expression darkened. 

"And why did you end up in Wakanda?"

Loki splayed his fingers out over the area where the scarring had been. "Plant. Heal."

So now he had confirmation that Loki had come specifically looking for the herb. "Guess things didn't work out the way you expected," Bucky said. "But they shouldn't. Not when you come here and kill people to get what you want."

Loki looked up sharply in surprise, his eyes narrowing on Bucky. Then the expression faded, and a nasty smile began to pull at the edges of his mouth, slow but inexorable. 

Bucky tried not to look as unnerved by it as he felt. He kept his voice flat. "What?"

A noise came from the back of Loki's throat, a low laugh that stiffened the hair on the back of Bucky's neck the longer it went on. He didn't like the edge to it, something not quite sane, like Loki was unraveling right before his eyes. Even when Loki dipped his head down and pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes again, the laughing went on.

Bucky tried to hold out, but eventually he grew desperate to stop the noise. "Cut it out," he finally said. "Dammit, just fucking _talk to me_."

The laughter petered off, ending in a frustrated whimper. When Loki dropped his hands his eyes were filling with fresh tears. He ignored Bucky, his gaze moving to the compartment in the wall. His eyes narrowed in hatred that eventually was drowned under a softened expression of longing. But when he tried to drag himself over, he couldn't quite gather the strength to manage it. 

Bucky couldn't take it anymore. He approached to help him with a gentle grip on a thin arm. Loki's body seized as he gasped and made an aborted attempt to contort free. He turned wild eyes up, his hand reaching out to grasp harshly over the bruises that lined Bucky's bicep. Bucky winced at the fresh pressure, and Loki quickly pulled away as if burned. 

Bucky sighed through his nose, then gestured with his head towards the box as he crouched back down. Loki's breathing bordered on hyperventilation the longer he kept contact. 

"Come on," Bucky tried, not knowing what else to do. "You don't want to be out here. Get dressed, and then I can help you over."

It was a while before some of the terror left Loki's face, the space left in its absence filled by quiet and angry self-loathing. At least the frightening maddened edge from before had faded. 

"You gonna let me help?" Bucky asked, careful to keep his tone neutral.

Loki's eyes turned on the ground and he gave a short nod. 

Bucky took the permission and helped pull the new tunic over Loki's head and thread his arms through the sleeves. Some additional cajoling and patience was required to get Loki to agree to get out of the blood-crusted and torn pants, Loki hissing and pulling away the more Bucky tried to convince him. 

" _Go,_ " Loki snarled. He was hunched and shivering again in the wake of Bucky's persistence. "I. Will. Do."

"All right, fine," Bucky said, dubious. Loki had been freed of the motion-limiting restrictions of the gauntlets, but he still moved like he was in their grip. It was probably going to take him more than a little struggling to change his lower half. "I'll go make us a snack while you dress."

Bucky left him to it and went to the kitchen area to gather up some more food, toasted some nuts with honey and spices. He ignored the sounds of strained grunts and breathing behind him as he cooked. He crossed the lab to Loki's box and set the snack near the outside with more water, then maneuvered the untouched tablet on the floor next to them. 

Bucky waited until Loki went quiet again to turn back to him. He'd managed to dress in the new pants and the old shredded ones were discarded on the ground next to him. 

Loki's hands were gripped into his hair and his breaths were labored. He was still shivering, eyes clamped shut, posture etiolated. The freshness and rich color of the new clothes made the poor condition of the rest of him stand out in stark contrast. 

He didn't panic or try to escape when Bucky clasped his arm, just tensed and turned his face away. Bucky hefted his arm over his shoulder and pulled him to his feet. Tremors vibrated against Bucky for the entirety of the short journey to the wall, the body next to him strung tight at the contact. But when Loki sank to his knees in the compartment he did it with a sigh, inching himself into the wall and only looking mildly confused at his new furnishings as he hit softness instead of hard metal. He took it in stride, though, and propped his shoulder up against the pillow. Then he finally relaxed, looking at home again.

Bucky had thought the additions of the bedding would make him feel better about the image of Loki inside that thing. It just made him feel sick again. 

"Listen," Bucky said, trying to keep his tone civil. "I know you don't like us, but you should still tell us if it hurts."

Loki looked irritated to have been distracted from his zoning out. He peered up at Bucky through squinted eyes like he was an irksome bug.

"I'm serious," Bucky said. "We had no idea what was going on inside that scar. I promise we're not gonna use it against you. Maybe it wouldn't have gotten so far out of control if you'd let us know. Shuri could have started on all of this earlier if you hadn't kept quiet."

Loki sneered in disbelief. "Why."

Bucky crouched down in front of him so Loki could better see the genuineness of his expression. "Her dad fucked up putting you down here. In case you didn't notice, it's killing her to know that she had a hand in the tech that kept you trapped."

"Why."

Bucky felt his anger rise. "Because she's really smart, but she's a good person. She doesn't do shit like that to people."

Loki huffed in disdainful incredulity. Bucky hated himself for how much he felt like punching him at the reaction, like the violence would make Loki listen better. Like Bucky didn't have a painful awareness of how much that crap _didn't_ work.

As if Loki had any real reason to believe him or Shuri about their intentions to not hurt him after Bucky had pinned him down as Shuri had carved him apart.

But Bucky was still pissed, and he was starting to get the idea that if he tried to pursue this right now, Loki was just going to piss him off further. He got to his feet. Loki's eyes followed him, his expression stubbornly set even as he still shivered with the aftershocks of trauma.

"Full stupid it is," Bucky muttered. "Believe what you want. If you want to do your best to sabotage us trying to save your life, be my fucking guest."

He turned his back on Loki and went to his bed on the other side of the lab, and stubbornly pretended to ignore him for the next few hours.

\----------

Loki fell asleep.

Bucky could have cried with relief when he noticed. In the wake of his horrific surgery, the removal of a large portion of what had been causing him pain seemed to have allowed him at least some temporary escape from his situation.

Bucky took the opportunity to sneak in a quick shower and change. He needed a new sash for his exposed shoulder, but he knew he wouldn't have a hope in hell of tying it on his own. 

When he came back out, the screens on the wall were depicting the start of twilight on the Wakandan horizon up above. Another day was almost done. Loki was still out, leaning against the pillow. He twitched and frowned in his sleep, his black hair a snarled mess around his face.

Bucky was attempting another round of Settle on a Goddamn Book to Read, Idiot when he received a call from Anwuli. The confusion he felt at her contacting him warred with a stab of longing and nervous guilt.

He gave Loki a furtive glance, but he was still dead to the world. Bucky moved to the far side of the lab, answering the call and keeping his voice quiet. "Hi Anwuli," he greeted. 

"White Wolf," she said. She held up a large cloth bag in her hand. "Shuri informed me she would not be able to deliver the dinner she promised for tonight."

Bucky frowned. "You're _here?_ " The guilt was joined by an additional dose of shame. 

Her smile was bright. "Yes. Do you want to come up, or should I come down?"

Bucky imagined Loki being exposed to Anwuli, and more than that, _Anwuli being exposed to Loki_. He shook his head. "I'll come up." A new tension in his muscles reawakened their stiffness and strain. Bucky took the elevator to the surface, unsure whether he should be relieved or worried that Loki did not so much as stir at the noise. 

Anwuli was standing in the grass, her back to the coloring sky, a scarf covering her head. She gave him a large smile and motioned him forward. "I brought stew."

Bucky took one of the packs she was carrying, a large blanket bound to the top. "How did you get all the way out here?"

"Horseback," she explained. "I set her up near the water so she could drink."

"That's still a long ride," Bucky said.

"Shuri offered to send one of the Dora to escort me in an airship, but I thought I would see what your path coming here was like."

Still, it would have been hours of travel. Shuri had to have sent a message to Anwuli before he'd even returned from his swim. 

It felt surreal to think that there had been a time even recently where he hadn't been bombarded by the stress of the memory of holding someone down while pieces of their insides were cut out.

"It was no trouble," Anwuli reassured, interrupting his thoughts. "I enjoyed myself immensely."

Bucky helped serve the food, and then they sat together on the blanket to eat and watch the sunset while Anwuli caught him up on what had been happening at the farm while he'd been gone. 

"The children have been overly fond with the goats in your absence," she said. "They keep asking when you will return."

"Probably not for a while," Bucky said, feeling the guilt fill him afresh.

Anwuli frowned. "Your new task is honorable, but you should not punish yourself over it. If you would like to visit, you should visit."

 _Easier said than done._ "It's...complicated. I need to stay here." 

"Why?" Anwuli asked, and for half a second he heard Loki's voice and his hackles rose. "You guard yourself as if you have done a heinous crime instead of offering a service to Wakanda. We have all been made aware of the situation by King T'Challa. We know about the man from space."

So that answered that question. "It's dangerous." He exhaled, gave a self-deprecating smile. "I tried to give myself a break earlier today. It didn't go so well."

"It's been two days since you took this task," Anwuli pointed out. "The future may not be representative of what is past."

She wasn't arguing with him, exactly, but he felt the drain of the conflict all the same. "It's not a good idea," he said, apologetic. 

She wouldn't let it go. "What part of it is not good?"

A bit of strain entered his voice. "The part where I leave him alone. I was supposed to be _watching him_ , and I missed something really big, just because I went for a swim."

"That is not how Shuri tells it." Anwuli shrugged. "But if you are really so concerned, bring him with you."

Bucky felt his heart pound faster just at the thought. "He's dangerous."

"Is he?" Anwuli raised her eyebrows. "Shuri said he had been made harmless."

Bucky showed her his bruised arm. "Sort of. He did this without even trying."

Anwuli peered at the marks. She didn't look happy. "Did that happen during the surgery?"

Bucky pulled his arm back. "Yeah."

"You let him," she guessed. "Because he was in pain."

Caught out, Bucky hunched his shoulders. "Maybe."

"And if the circumstances arose where he somehow did that to someone else, would you just allow him?"

"No!"

Anwuli shrugged. "Then what worries you?"

Bucky clenched his hand. "That's the whole point of keeping him down there, so I _don't_ have to worry about it." He hesitated. "Besides, King T'Challa said he had to stay in the lab."

"That was before you were made the head of this task and your judgment entrusted in overseeing it." Anwuli shook her head knowingly. "I will not pressure you any longer. But White Wolf, you languish in your own mind. You still assume rules and restrictions where there are none, and you do not _ask_. Wakanda is not here to try to cage you in as others have done, or to treat you like you have been tamed. We are here to welcome you and give you a place to run free."

Bucky frowned, his eyes on the darkening horizon. He didn't say anything for a long moment. He imagined with more than a bit of anxiety the idea of bringing an attempted world-conqueror around _kids._ "He's not a very nice person," he finally responded, voice weak.

Bucky drew his shoulders up as Anwuli laughed, long and loud. "Then we will simply do our best to be the opposite." She patted his arm. "I should get back. If I do not hear from you in the next few days, I will check in."

\----------

Bucky brought the third portion of dinner back down into the lab, storing it in the fridge when he noted Loki still sleeping. He thought maybe the dark marks around Loki's eyes were beginning to fade. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

He took another scan of Loki's body, threw it up on the wall of screens beside the one from earlier, and compared the two to see if he could discern any difference in the little yellow dots that lined Loki's tissues. He counted at least two small new areas of spotting near the liver and intestines. They were tiny, insidious. And he knew they were going to spread. 

_"He may...deteriorate again, before I find a proper cure."_

He resisted the urge to call Shuri to check her progress, not wanting to interrupt her research, at least not yet. She would work fast. 

She had to work fast.

Eventually, Bucky forced himself to turn the screens off completely, along with the music and the lights. 

When he slept, he had nightmares of being ordered to hold Loki down for surgery after surgery, until piece by piece his living tissue was turned into flesh-toned vibranium metal, completely devoid of life.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be sure to check back here Tuesday for a **bonus chapter!**

Bucky repeatedly jerked awake throughout the night with seizing alertness, sure that Loki was going to come seeking retribution with fingers tight against Bucky's throat. He didn't, but that didn't stop the nightmares of white coats and bright lights and drills and saws from growing more chaotic. At one point Bucky dreamed that his arm had become infected through the spot where Loki had gripped it during surgery, bruises rotting black until the limb fell from his torso. Steve was there, watching with disappointment in his eyes. _"Colluding with the guy that tried to take over the world, Buck?"_

Loki remained in his box, sleeping soundly against the pillow and unaware that his roommate was having such a hell of a time. He stayed that way when Bucky decided to rise well before dawn, and he didn't stir for breakfast or lunch. 

Bucky didn't try to wake him, figured he needed it, wanted him to get the rest while he still could. He was also relieved that he could go about his day ignoring a little better the fact that he had voluntarily shacked himself up with a would-be world conqueror _without_ the intention of fighting or killing him.

Bucky tried to keep himself busy. He worked with the cleaning and sanitation equipment Shuri had left. He found a self-described aggressive bodyweight workout routine in the Wakandan database and quadrupled the reps. He even gave himself a couple of breaks to have the elevator bring him up to the surface so he could sun himself and _breathe_. His compromise was that he didn't leave the area. He kept an eye on the feed down in the lab using his Kimoyo Beads. 

He made it until late afternoon before he gave in and called Shuri. Her eyes were beginning to grow puffy with fatigue, but she spoke animatedly as she explained the Design Group's progress. "We are researching computerized simulations based on the tissue samples I took and the data I gathered on how the invading cells have behaved before now," she said. "So far we have not been successful - in all of the simulations we either weaken his cells so much for surgery that the invading ones burn through his body at an accelerated rate, or our attempts at creating stabilization for the lesions is thwarted by their continual mutations. But I am confident we are on the right track."

"That's good," Bucky said. "He's been sleeping all day."

She gave a sad smile. "That can only help. He will need his strength. Has he said anything? Asked for anything? I can send someone with supplies." 

"He talked to me a little last night," Bucky answered. "He said he came here to try to heal himself."

Shuri sighed. "I had suspected."

Bucky hesitated. "Do you think your father knew about that?"

Shuri looked down, her voice softening as she responded. "My father...he had his faults. Some of them, I am learning, were quite large." When her eyes came back up she spoke with renewed steadiness. "Loki's intentions would not have mattered, not back then, not as a war criminal and not if he used violence to try to escape. Wakanda needed to stay secret by whatever means possible."

Bucky nodded, remembering Loki's wild laughter when he'd tried to pursue the subject. "I'm sorry," he said, because he felt he should say something. 

"You cannot apologize for my father, Bucky. And neither can I, for that matter. But I _can_ try my hardest to fix what he has broken."

\----------

Bucky was trying to work his way through a puzzle game on his Kimoyo Beads in the late afternoon when Loki finally stirred. He came awake slowly, his eyes groggy and confused as he scanned his surroundings, wild hair flattened down against the side of his head where his weight had pushed against it. His gaze moved down to his hands, to the Gauntlet Stabilizers, and then his eyes slid shut. He let his head fall back against the pillow, chest expanding around a heavy, jerking sigh.

Bucky didn't bother him, unsure whether or not Loki was going back to sleep. Other than his nap before being released from the restraints in the wall, the last day was probably the first time he had slept before getting stored underground. Stasis was a form of rest, but it was a horrific clawing one that made Bucky feel the edges of claustrophobia creep in the more he focused his thoughts on it. 

Loki didn't go back to sleep, though. A few minutes later he opened his eyes and peered over at Bucky. "Time," he rasped, voice barely above a whisper.

Bucky glanced up at Loki over his game. "You were out for just over twenty four hours. Shuri's hard at work trying to figure out how to get that stuff out of you."

Loki made a noise in the back of his throat. It didn't sound exactly positive, but it wasn't completely saturated with loathing, either. He seemed to think for a moment, and then he watched Bucky with a careful eye as he grasped at the sides of the cube and pulled himself out. He was hesitant, his eyes repeatedly darting to the beads that controlled his gauntlets. When he unfolded himself into standing, Bucky noted uneasily that there was a strength in his limbs that had been absent before now.

Bucky tried not to make big deal out of Loki's movement. He gave him a small nod and angled his body away before he went back to his game. But he watched out of his periphery, way too tense at the idea of turning his back completely. Even visibly cowed, Loki moved like a predator when he wasn't about to collapse. It seemed to just be a part of his bearing rather than anything he was doing consciously. 

Or maybe it was just Bucky's own overactive distrust at work.

When he heard the door to the outhouse close, Bucky moved quickly to the kitchen area and reheated the food Anwuli had brought. He set the stew down in front of Loki's box, along with a generous pile of more plums and pears and nuts. 

Loki came out of the outhouse before Bucky was finished setting up. His eyes grew anxious when he saw the entrance to his compartment was blocked. 

"I'll be done in a second," Bucky said, feeling awkward. He quickly set down an armful of water bottles, and cleared out the trash from the day before.

Loki went very still as he braced his long body against the wall with a wary and impatient expression. When Bucky finally drew back he made a beeline for his box, looking uneasy and spooked to be in the larger area of the lab. He crouched inside, this time settling himself with his legs crossed. A frown shadowed his face as he stared down at the heaping of food and water Bucky had left within easy reach. 

So maybe Bucky had gone a little overboard. 

Now that his instincts weren't responding to the possibility of imminent attack, he was able to note that at least Loki did look better than he had before the surgery. The length of sleep took some of the corpse-like quality from his skin, the dark marks under his eyes greatly faded. His hair was still a mess, but there wasn't much Bucky could do about that except suggest a shower that was probably going to be an ordeal in its own right. 

"You missed dinner and breakfast and lunch, so I thought I'd give you a couple of meals," Bucky explained. He actually didn't know the calorie requirements for someone like Loki, and he didn't figure he'd get an answer if he asked. Shuri could probably figure it out.

Loki looked at him like he thought Bucky was certifiable.

_Like that's news to anyone, pal._ But this behavior was the most casual Bucky had seen Loki display. He felt like he was seeing hints of the person beneath the wary animal.

It seemed like now was as good of a time as ever to try another conversation. Hopefully, this one would be more productive.

Bucky steeled himself. He brought his chair closer to Loki's box, holding his hand up to indicate he meant no harm when Loki brought up a wide-eyed gaze at his proximity. 

"So," Bucky began, "let's try this again. I want to ask you a few questions."

Loki stared, shoulders tense. His hands that had been previously loose and open in his lap sought each other out, fingers curving.

Bucky pointed to Loki's chest. "Anything hurting?"

Loki looked taken aback. The jitters lessened and he raised his eyebrows.

"I mean from the stuff spreading," Bucky clarified. "Shuri said the lesions were making their own nerves." Which meant Loki had to be _very_ aware of their progress.

Loki rolled his eyes and shook his head. Anger was beginning to build in his expression, overtaking his caution.

Bucky had been expecting a reaction to that effect. "Just answer the question," he said, keeping his voice civil.

Loki had moved to full on glaring. He indicated the wrist cuff on one of his gauntlets with a gesture, then pointed at Bucky. "You. See." His voice sounded a lot better, too, the words strong despite the aphasia.

Bucky followed Loki's pointing finger to his Kimoyo Beads. "I can see where it's spread to, but that doesn't tell me about your pain levels. And you still haven't answered the question."

Loki's lip curled into a snarl, eyes gleaming between tangled and unruly hair. "Talk. Hard."

Loki obviously didn't like Bucky being firm, but Bucky wasn't going to let him derail the conversation. He raised his eyebrow. "You have something else you're planning on doing right now? Somewhere to be?"

Loki growled, and this time when he tried to slam his head into the wall he met only the soft surface of the pillow. Bucky allowed himself to feel the tiniest bit smug at that.

Loki's brow furrowed and he clamped his eyes shut in concentration, the fingers of one hand now pulling at the rings on the other. "Pain," he said. "In. Head. Side. Back." He opened his eyes. "Not. Before. Ah. Not. Like. Before."

"Good," Bucky breathed, feeling some of his tension fade now that Loki had given him verbal confirmation of his lessened pain levels. "Now let's pick up where we left off yesterday."

Loki looked vaguely murderous. 

Bucky stared back, his own gaze unwavering. "There's a couple of things we need to clear up. And I'm not letting you just check out of the conversation when I piss you off. Not anymore."

Loki hissed in impatience. "What. Want."

"I set you off yesterday," Bucky said. "I wanna know why."

Loki raised his eyebrows and scoffed. "You. Not. One. Them."

"What the hell does whether or not I'm Wakandan have to do with anything?"

"You. Not. Know." Loki paused, and pressed his hand into his forehead with a grimace. 

"I don't know what?" Bucky prompted when the silence stretched.

"S...secrets," Loki finally managed, grinding his teeth.

"No shit," Bucky said dryly. "That's kind of the whole point of me asking questions."

Loki's breathing was beginning to change, his eyes going a little bit harder, a little bit wilder. He'd dropped his hands so they were loosely curled at his sides, as if around the handles of invisible weapons.

"Look," Bucky said, keeping an instinctive eye on the lines of Loki's body, "Wakanda's not the same as it was five years ago. The people that run it now aren't so much into the whole secrets and lies bag anymore. They'd even help out someone like you." _Or someone like me._

Loki's furious eyes lowered to the blanket beneath his knees. His fidgeting had moved to the sleeves of his tunic, fingers picking at the edges. "Why. Care."

_I don't care,_ was what Bucky would have said if it had been three days earlier. _So I can have more reasons to remind myself what you are,_ might have been the answer the day after that.

Now...

Bucky shrugged, and spoke truthfully. "Maybe it'll help us improve your situation."

Loki shook his head, posture growing more ruffled. "Not. Matter."

"So tell me if it doesn't matter," Bucky argued.

" _No._ "

Bucky clenched his fist. "Have to say, I'd be expecting a lot more apathy if it really wasn't such a big deal."

Loki snarled. "Not. Matter!"

"Well if you'd just _goddamn_ -" Bucky broke off and shut his eyes, breathed, tried to get a hold on his temper. He had to be firm, but going angrier would just probably make Loki lash out even more. Or make him freak out and shut down. 

Either way, Bucky had an idea that Loki knew exactly what he was doing to piss him off.

"I set you off yesterday," Bucky repeated, tone calm but firm. "I wanna know why."

Loki breathed heavily. His eyes slipped to the beads around Bucky's wrist, before he pulled back and put his hands over his eyes.

"Don't do that," Bucky said, voice tired. "Don't hide from it."

Loki gave an indignant grunt. " _Not_. Hide." He pressed his hands in harder. "Think."

Bucky, absurdly, thought of Winnie-the-Pooh. The sudden and abrupt memory of reading those stories growing up in Brooklyn made him feel unbalanced for a small moment, his stomach aching with a distant longing for another time, another life.

He waited.

Loki dropped his hands, his cheeks flushed with emotion. The speech that followed came in short bursts, like he was spitting nails. "You. Said. I. Kill."

"Yeah," Bucky said, stretching his memory to make sure he was following. "I was talking about the War Dogs that you murdered after you stole the herb."

Loki licked his lips. His eyes lowered, darting from side to side. "Tried. Run. Then. _Talk_...first."

Bucky frowned, gave an extra moment to be sure Loki was finished. "That's not what the file we found said."

Loki's face scrunched like he'd tasted something sour. " _File._ Lies."

Bucky had a feeling that the file wasn't the only thing that would lie. "So what did happen. You took the herb, you tried to talk to them, then..."

"Then. King. Ah. _King._ Said. Help." His lips twisted in bitterness, his breath quickening. He raised a hand again to push against his forehead. "Not. Help. _Stall._ "

Bucky frowned. ( _"Wakanda needed to stay secret by whatever means possible."_ ) "But you killed people before, when you tried to helm that invasion. Did you expect the Wakandans to just lend a hand at letting you enhance yourself? So you could give yourself another shot at the planet?"

Loki lowered his hand. Some new emotion sparked behind his eyes. He looked to the side of the cube, away from Bucky, that awful twist of an angry smile beginning again. "No," he said, tone cold. 

Bucky groaned internally. _Not this again._ He tried to calm his voice, tried to regain the footing on his progress. "I'm pissing you off," he said. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't insult you when you answer my questions."

Loki didn't answer, eyes stubbornly turned away. His hands clenched and unclenched.

Bucky sat back in his chair, ignoring the ache that flared up in his spine at the change in position. "There has to be more you're not telling me."

Loki shut his eyes. "Done," he said, voice flat. 

"No, we're not done, I-"

" _Done!_ " Loki roared, then lashed out at the bowl of stew.

The motion froze before he even made contact, every line of his body going absolutely still. 

It took Bucky a moment to realize what had happened. "Shit," he hissed, fumbling for the settings on the Stabilizing Beads. "Shit, Loki, hang on." 

When he was released, Loki came back into movement with huge, gulping breaths and panic in his eyes. He all but threw himself to the very back of the compartment, back slamming against metal and his face tightening with pain. Each breath was edged by a plaintive noise, his body shuddering viciously as he hunched himself into a ball and tangled his fingers into his hair.

"Loki," Bucky tried, and Loki just curled tighter. "You're not in trouble. It's - that was the settings for the gauntlets."

" _Done_ ," Loki said again, an edge of a whine to his tear-filled voice.

"Yeah," Bucky said, feeling like two hundred pounds of shit. "Yeah, okay. We're done."

\----------

Loki remained curled up and hiding for the rest of the day. He ignored the food Bucky had set out for him. He didn't respond to any other attempts at conversation or apologies or reassurances that he wasn't going to get put permanently back into stasis. All he did was stay a shuddering mess in the wall, spots of moisture intermittently dotting his pants a darker green.

Everything that had seemed predatory about him had been beaten back down in one fell swoop of punishment from the gauntlets.

Bucky didn't think he'd actually miss the time when the guy was trying to strangle him. 

_Did you think there was going to a cut and dried manual when it came to this kind of thing,_ Bucky thought. He knew instincts. He knew the gut responses of someone trying to fight and survive. But there was an emotional minefield around Loki beyond that, one that Bucky was going to have to be more careful about navigating in the future. As if that was even possible when he didn't even have a halfway good grasp on his own tangle of a mind.

He couldn't really blame Loki for being touchy. Bucky figured he would be in a hell of a lot worse of a condition himself if he'd been stored - _conscious_ \- in a wall for five years. And he had to have thought, even for a few seconds, that he was being _returned_ to that...

Five years. Was that a long time where Loki came from? Did he have anyone out there that missed him? 

Bucky pulled up videos of the alien attack on New York. He tried to reconcile the image of the golden-armored god with the broken man wedged into the corner of a metal box.

The screens on the wall were displaying the Wakandan sunset. Bucky turned off his Kimoyo Beads to watch, then sat and stared into the darkness.

\------------

The nightmares weren't as fresh that night, weren't as filled with the razor-edged horror simulations. Bucky managed to make it through a decent portion of hours asleep.

When he woke in the morning, Loki was sitting on the floor against the outhouse, very near to his bed. The sight made him jerk upright instinctive defense. Then his mind caught up to the fact that Loki's neck was bent, his eyes lowered and his limbs loose. Nonthreatening. His hair looked like he'd tried to comb his fingers through it at some point, the tangles still there, but a bit less wild.

"You're out of the wall," Bucky said, sitting the rest of the way up with caution.

Loki looked up, then back down. Bucky noticed the tablet that rested under his hand, sleek and thin and silver. His fingers twitched over it, his brow furrowing as he gripped it tight.

"You finally decide to use that thing?" Bucky asked, not sure what was happening.

Loki smiled, not the nasty one but not a very happy one, either, and full of bitterness. It slipped away and he slid the tablet towards Bucky's bed, still not looking up.

Bucky frowned, reaching down for the item and bringing it up to look. It was open on some sort of text program. There were several sentences, written in the same stilted language Loki used when he spoke. 

_Wolf,_ it started, and Bucky realized the word was addressed to him. _Talk hard. Write hard. Can't. But._

_Came for plant. Plant heal. Not well. Not fast. Tried run. Caught._

_Tried talk. King talk. King lied. Then sleep. Then trapped. King tried kill. So. I killed. But. Wanted run. Then trapped. Dark. Trapped._

_Girl not cure. Can't. Feel death. Girl find death. Please._

Bucky read it a few more times, trying to make better sense of the picture the words painted. When he looked up, Loki was wringing his hands and still not making eye contact. 

"You must still really have a low opinion of humans," Bucky said. "They managed to trap you for that long but you don't think they can help you."

Loki glanced up, but didn't hold his gaze for long. His expression had dulled. He looked tired, and a little sad.

Bucky pointed to the tablet where it rested in his lap. "This part. 'Girl find death.' What's that mean?"

Loki's lips tightened and he heaved out a sigh. "Kill. Me."

_Yeah, that's what I thought it meant._ Bucky shook his head. "Sorry, pal. You're shit out of luck there. Shuri's gonna beat this thing one way or another, and alien invasion or not, neither you or me can convince her otherwise."

Loki clenched his jaw, a bit of fire spiking back to life in his expression.

"I know," Bucky said, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. "Like I said yesterday, they're really forgiving here in Wakanda now. I don't get it, either."

Loki gave a low laugh, the edges of his mouth drawn up in scorn. "Then. Why. You. Help."

Bucky hesitated. Loki laughed again, hard and mean. "You. Get. It."

Bucky just shook his head, and slid the tablet back towards him with a little more force than was necessary. Loki whipped his hand out to easily catch it, still laughing.

"You're an asshole," Bucky muttered.

That didn't mean Loki wasn't right, though.

\-----------

Loki didn't speak much after that, but he did spend some of his day outside of the cube in the wall. Bucky interacted carefully. Loki was still very uneasy and took most movements as threats to be assessed before he'd calm enough to take in additional information.

Bucky tried to show him how Shuri's pop-up shower worked. He even began to explain how to use a comb.

"It's easier to start going at it from the bottom if it's really tangled," Bucky said, demonstrating on his own hair. "Then work your way up."

He paused when he noticed that Loki was staring at him like he was a dumbass.

"Do you have these in space?" Bucky asked, holding up the comb. Loki _had_ looked decidedly more well groomed during his invasion.

Loki nodded slowly, making Bucky feel like a moron with just a simple movement. But then he held out his hand palm up, averting his eyes in chagrin. When Bucky gave him the comb, he quickly moved into the shower, forcefully shutting himself inside.

Bucky stared at the closed door, suddenly wondering if Loki had taken his words as an order. He decided to give himself the next couple hours off from speaking - for both their sakes. 

The rest of the evening went by without too much trouble, which Bucky credited to the lack of conversation. Loki - clean, damp hair slicked back and curling against his neck - used the tablet again. His long legs stretched out now that he wasn't adhering to the perimeter of his box.

He, unlike Bucky, was able to settle on a book to read. But despite his renewed strength, reading was an obvious strain. Though he repeatedly went back to it, Loki was forced several times to set the tablet down and stare into space, a pained line between his eyes. 

He tensed as Bucky made dinner and served him food. He stared resentfully at the bowl, the same one that had sent him into stasis when he lost his temper. He picked it up and ate from it all the same, to Bucky's relief.

When Loki grew tired, he turned off the tablet and ventured back into his box, settling himself against the pillow. He dropped off soon after.

Bucky surreptitiously took a scan of Loki's body before turning in himself. The spreading lesions had left his organs alone, instead branching out into the walls of his pelvis and chest. The ones in his brain didn't look any different so far. _Thank god._

That was the first night that Bucky woke up to Loki screaming. 

His panic overtook his thoughts as he leapt from his bed before he was even fully awake. He stood poised and ready to activate the beads, his mind overrun by primal fear and not yet caught up to the chemical and physical responses of his body. 

Loki wasn't attacking, he realized. He was crying out like he was _being_ attacked. Bucky tried to call out to him, once, then again more forcefully, but there was no response.

Another scream eroded Bucky's returning calm and he grabbed a water bottle and rushed over, pushing the cap off with his thumb and throwing the liquid onto Loki's face.

Loki came awake with another cry, then went immediately quiet. He shook in the wake of the dream, water running down his face to mix in with the sweat on his skin.

"Sorry," Bucky said, muscles tight. "You were having a nightmare. I didn't want to touch you and have you accidentally activate the gauntlets again."

Loki stared with wide eyes and didn't give any hint that he understood. Bucky grabbed him a cloth, tossing it over and trying to not feel too bad about Loki's flinch from the harmless item as it landed in front of him. He stared down at the cloth in confusion, hesitantly reaching out for it.

Bucky settled himself on the floor in front of the box, pulling his legs close to his chest and settling his arm over his raised knees. His spine didn't like him sitting without support, but he ignored it. "You wanna talk about it?"

Loki's gaze darted up and narrowed. His breaths came in shivers, but some of his baseline attitude was returning to his expression.

"I have nightmares sometimes," Bucky said, like he hadn't been struggling with them every night since he'd found this lab. "Used to have them a lot more. Sometimes it helped to get the words out after they happened." He didn't mention that he'd been alone during those times, and the words had gone into a notebook, and he'd never been one hundred percent sure if they were figments or memories or a combination of the two.

He'd lost the notebook when he'd been caught in Romania. The bag that held it and others was gone, now, probably holed up in some government office. Kept filed, where anyone with access could rifle through it and see his fears and pain put to paper.

He hadn't started up another one in Wakanda. He'd been too worried about the kids finding it back on the farm. Or, god forbid, Shuri. He couldn't undercut all of the good work she'd done on his brain with his nonsense. 

Loki still wasn't answering, but he'd raised the cloth to wipe himself free of water and sweat. Bucky was willing to bet his remaining arm that he wouldn't be going back to sleep. 

Loki dropped the cloth, weariness drooping his shoulders. He looked up at Bucky through his eyelashes. "Why," Loki began, then paused and cleared his throat. "Why. You. Here."

It was the same question Loki had asked him days ago. Bucky hadn't quite answered it, then. He didn't really want to answer it now. But Loki had bared some of his past (if it hadn't all been a lie) and Bucky felt like maybe a sentence or two was a reasonable exchange. Maybe it'd get Loki to cooperate better when Shuri came to help again.

He met Loki's gaze. "I did some bad things. Killed a lot of people for the wrong side."

Loki's eyes moved to the exposed metal shoulder, and Bucky realized he was clutching at the spot under his shirt where the scar tissue spread outwards. 

He struggled not to react, to keep speaking, feeling suddenly vulnerable. "When I got away, there was still some stuff in my head. Trigger words that bad people could use to make me kill for them. I didn't really see a way around that, but Shuri managed to fix my mind." He raised his eyebrows. "Just like she's gonna fix yours."

Loki's nostrils flared. He shook his head, but very slightly, like he wasn't even aware he was doing it.

"I know you think she can't. But you had all that power and you still couldn't beat it. She knew about it for about an hour and she cut out most of it." 

Loki paled, throat working. He brought a hand up to his chest. "And. After?"

_Who the fuck knows,_ Bucky thought. He sighed. "Well, for now...I guess that depends on me."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, those last two chapters were a nice break, right? What do you mean, they weren't nice? They didn't even have any cliffhangers.
> 
> There's no reason for me to be mentioning that specific point. Really.
> 
> Next chapter should be up **Saturday.**

They didn't sleep again that night. Loki stared into space with half-lidded eyes, shivering on and off in his damp clothes. Bucky turned on the music and activated the full body dryer in the pop-up shower, leaving the door open to let the heat escape into the lab.

Dawn colored the screens on the wall in bright oranges and reds creeping up from the horizon. Bucky saw shadows, forms moving in the darkness. Jackals, he thought, searching for their last meal before the light spread.

Anwuli called him not soon after that. 

"I knew you would be awake," she said. "How are you?"

 _Tired. On edge. Wondering how the hell I got myself into this mess._ "I'm fine."

She, thankfully, didn't call him out on his lie. "Have you made breakfast yet?"

"Not yet," Bucky said, grateful for the subject to move on.

"Tell me what you have on hand, and I will walk you through something."

Bucky remained vaguely worried that Anwuli was going to probe - he didn't think he could take another deep conversation that cracked open his doubts and rearranged them after the week he'd had. But she only kept him up to date on the fact that the farm was doing absolutely fine in his absence, but they would still be happy to have him back. They were even keeping his hut free for him for when he returned. 

She spoke rather than requiring him to speak, instructing him as he cooked. He felt a lull overtake him as he followed the simple orders, a peace in something that wasn't the input of this horrible situation. 

He kept his movements and his voice quiet, ever aware of Loki in the cube, twitching and frowning and glowering if he became too loud.

When Bucky was nearly done cooking, the sound of children laughing in the background sounded on the beads. Anwuli turned her head and shouted, loudly. "Not in here!"

Bucky frowned as he heard the kids speaking eagerly to her in Xhosa. "What's going on?"

Anwuli shook her head, her expression going kind again. "See for yourself."

Anwuli's face disappeared from the Kimoyo Beads. In her place popped up a goat covered in designs with the white paint that the tribespeople used to decorate themselves. In between swooping lines and patterned dots, the goat's side was covered with the stylized outline of a running wolf with three legs.

Bucky felt his lips pull into an amused smile. "That's...really good." He said so again in Xhosa, knowing the kids were nearby and listening.

They took that as permission, several heads appearing wedged together on the Kimoyo Bead display. They all talked animatedly at once with different stories about the farm animals and how some of the girls had begun training themselves so they could one day run as fast as he did.

After a few minutes, Anwuli shouted over them, shooing them away. The kids broke off and dispersed quickly, shouting goodbyes to him as they fled. A low bleat sounded in the background.

Anwuli growled in frustration. "Take the goat with you!" The kids didn't come back. She was shaking her head as she brought the Kimoyo Beads back up to focus on herself. "As you can see, they miss you. It is really for my own sanity that I am encouraging you to come back and visit."

Bucky swallowed, his joy wisping away at the edges. He awkwardly searched for a response.

"You don't have to answer that," she quickly said. "I just thought you should hear it." 

Bucky relaxed. It _was_ good. It was something...sobering, to know that he was missed for something more than just his contributions of work. It made him feel a little more connected, a little less boxed in, even as it made the feeling of loss raise its ugly head. "Thank you," he said.

"I will check in again in a few days," she promised.

\----------

He set down a plate in front of the box. Loki frowned at the sight of yams and egg sauce, but his expression didn't turn to bitter disdain or rage. Instead, he heaved a sigh, and took the food. He ate mechanically, without the desperate quickness of the starving he'd shown before. It was troubling, especially considering how little food Loki had taken in the past two days.

Bucky took another scan while Loki was eating, to an irate glare. He threw it up on the screens, and felt his stomach drop. There was a dramatic increase in yellow dots across bones and organs, the visible pattern of before having been warped as they grew wildly uncontrolled. He altered the image, turning it and zooming in so he could get the full details of where the cells had drifted.

A cluster of dots was reaching towards Loki's lower spine. The blotch on his chest wall was inching near to his intestines. Some other growths, different from the lesions, had begun weaving in stringy masses around his veins and organs. 

There were new spots in his brain, spreading across the frontal lobe.

Bucky looked at Loki, who stubbornly kept his eyes down as he ate. He displayed nothing outwardly, no pain or distress. But he had to know what was happening. He had to be feeling it.

Bucky called Shuri to tell her about the findings, careful to bring the conversation on the Kimoyo Beads over to where Loki could see it. Her voice was slower than normal, tempered by tiredness. Bucky felt torn between wanting her to rest and coming to a realization that maybe Loki didn't have time for her to stop. 

Her words confirmed his fears. "These growths that you are seeing alongside the lesions are scar tissue developing around the invading cells. His body is still attempting to protect against the invasion in its own way. Unfortunately, that will mean more trouble for us. It is already beginning to choke off the iliac artery, and it will soon restrict movement in his organs."

"Anything I can do?" Bucky asked. Behind the Kimoyo Bead display, he saw Loki clench his jaw and send an annoyed glare at the wall. "I didn't ask you," he told Loki, irritated in kind.

"Not until I figure out how to remove the lesions completely," Shuri answered. "Keeping him occupied would be good. Maybe a bit of gentle exercise while he is still capable. It cannot be helping for him to remain so sedentary."

Bucky figured Loki wasn't going to appreciate that suggestion, especially since any time spent out of the cube made him look like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. A lack of exercise seemed like the least of his worries.

But trying to read had seemed so painful the day before, and Bucky didn't know how long before his brain function started to decrease. He knew if it was him, he wouldn't want to spend his last days of awareness stuck in the ground.

"It shouldn't be long, now," Shuri said, her tone growing encouraging. "Maybe just a couple more days. I can feel it. We are on the edge of a breakthrough."

Bucky nodded. He moved his wrist out to Loki to display Shuri better. "Anything you want to ask her?"

Loki inched back into his compartment, looking like a hunted animal hiding in its den. His pale hands clutched at the blanket beneath his knees. "Find. Death."

"What was that?" Shuri asked, voice sharp.

Bucky winced. "Yeah, I sorta didn't tell you about that. He thinks you should be finding a way to kill him. He doesn't think you can cure him."

Shuri's eyes widened in outrage. She cursed in a string of Xhosa. "Bring me closer - Loki! Loki, _pay attention_."

Bucky slowly did as she asked. Loki glared at Shuri's form, still arched like an angry cat.

"I am very sorry about the surgery," she said, a note of steel under her calm tone. "And more that I could not be there while you completely recovered. But you? Insulting my intelligence? That is something I will not allow. This will not be the end for you, because believe it or not, after everything that has happened, you have actually found the _one_ place in the world that has the ability and the willingness to help you. If you are to squander such a gift after the fact, that will be your choice."

Loki dipped his chin, his eyes gleaming with distrust. His hand had returned to his chest, pressing against the synthetic grafts beneath the tunic. "Not. Gift." He curled his lip. " _Torture._ " 

Bucky felt his blood go cold. The word had been pointed, aimed to wound Shuri like a sniper shot. "Don't be an asshole," he growled, and Loki's angry gaze turned on him. "She's trying to _help._ "

Loki smiled nastily. Bucky felt like punching him.

Shuri's shoulders had gone stiff. "We will resume this conversation _after_ I have fixed your mind so you can properly speak it," she promised Loki. "Take me away from him."

"I know," Bucky said when he'd drawn away from the cube. "He's a regular bundle of joy."

"I told him he was allowed to hate me," Shuri said. "I do not care what he thinks of me. Only that he gets his facts straight."

"Yeah." Bucky thought maybe that wasn't as true as she wanted it to be. Loki was observant, could cut deep with words, even with only a few syllables at his disposal.

Bucky looked towards the screens again. "Two more days?"

Shuri nodded. "At most. I am hoping. The Design Group and I are taking the research in shifts. Be sure to check in with me again tomorrow."

"Will do."

\-----------

Loki sulked in the compartment in the wall for a while after breakfast. Then he tried reading the tablet, but it was obviously more difficult and painful than it had been the day before. Eventually he tossed the item away in frustration, eyes taking on an angry sheen.

Bucky wandered over to the cube, cautious in case Loki was still really pissed at him. He watched him rub at his forehead and flinch in pain when he accidentally pressed too hard on the spot where the lesions would be eating into his skull. When he noticed Bucky, he glared up with narrowed eyes.

Bucky shrugged, trying to keep things casual after their last aggressive encounter. "I could really go for a leg stretch."

Loki scowled from behind his hand. 

_Here goes nothing._ Bucky grabbed the boots Shuri had brought for Loki, setting them down outside the compartment. "I was thinking about taking you with me."

Loki drew back, like he had when being presented with Shuri's image. His expression filled with suspicion and wariness, the lines of his body changing. A forearm drew up, as if he thought there was an attack incoming that he needed to shield himself against.

Bucky backed up a step to give him more space before he crouched down. "Apparently I don't technically have to keep you down here," he said. "I'm sorry that I thought I did in the first place."

Loki's glanced at the elevator on the far side of the lab. He rubbed harder at his forehead. "Lights," he eventually said, a nervous twinge to his voice.

"I can disable them," Bucky assured. "The Gauntlet Stabilizers will be cued in to a limited radius, though. We get too far from each other and they'll trigger."

Loki shuddered. He shook his head, shoulders hunched around his ears. "Not. Stop."

"It's not a threat," Bucky said. "It's just how it's going to be." He waited a beat. "Don't you want to get out of this lab? See what that looks like in person?" Bucky gestured at the feed of the Wakandan horizon.

Loki jerked his head up, eyeing Bucky suspiciously. He moved closer to the far wall of his box, back curved. Bucky noticed that he kept his left side - where a large mass of lesions and scar tissue would be - carefully free from contact against any surfaces.

"I won't drag you out of there if you don't want it," Bucky said. "I just figured...if _I_ thought I was in the grip of some damn disease like yours, and I thought it couldn't be fixed...I'd want to spend as much time in the open air as I could. While I still could."

Loki didn't say anything. His face had gone hard, but his hands shook. Bucky knew if he had any intent on reaching into that box, he would be triggering a violent defensive reaction.

He swallowed, wondering what he'd said wrong this time. Maybe Loki really was too damaged in the head for something like leaving the lab. But they didn't have time for a slow reintroduction process with the cells moving at the rate they were now. And he couldn't ignore the fact that it was going to feel like he'd failed if Loki decided to stay in there.

After the silence stretched to no reaction, Bucky moved back to his bed. He wasn't going to push.

It was a long time later and he was trying to solve a level on a puzzle game through the ball of anxiety in his gut when he heard movement behind him. He glanced sidelong at the box, wondering in resignation what new complication was coming. He paused in surprise when he saw that Loki had pulled on the boots and was determinedly pulling himself to his feet outside the cube. A grimace of a snarl painted his face at the effort. His hands fluttered to his side when he straightened, before he forcefully pulled them away. He stared at Bucky, chin raised, body and face steeling themselves to show no emotion. The ragged hitching edge to his breaths still gave him away.

When all Bucky did was stare back, Loki huffed out a breath. " _Walk,_ " he said, the word a command. 

Bucky didn't let the relief show on his face. He grabbed a bag, quickly filling it with bottles of water and food. "Let's go," he said. 

Loki hesitated just outside the elevator platform, some of his stone-cold composure cracking. He leaned forward and peered upwards at the tunnel that would lead to the surface.

"I deactivated the stabilizers in the tunnel," Bucky promised. 

Loki looked down warily at the metal platform, cautiously overtaking it with a booted foot. When it began to take them up he suddenly hunched his shoulders up, breaths coming more rapidly as he clamped his hands over his ears. He took a quick step to the side, as if he would bolt, then bared his teeth and forced himself to retake his previous spot. He kept his hands over his ears for the entire journey.

When they reached the surface, Loki took in the openness of Wakanda and immediately reeled back. His face drained of color, eyes darting from the sky to the horizon, as if it was a looming enemy he had to escape. Bucky cursed internally and moved with him, following with matching speed as Loki bolted.

Loki turned his gaze enough to notice the rock wall nearby. He staggered to it with quick steps, all but crashing his shoulder into the stone. His legs gave way beneath him and he slid down until he was sitting in the dirt. He gripped his fingers into earth, hyperventilating, the edge of a whine sounding in his throat.

Bucky crouched a distance away, not wanting to crowd him. "You're good," Bucky said. The panic attacks didn't get easier to watch. "Nothing's gonna happen out here. Except maybe sunburn." Probably not, though. Bucky knew from experience that there had to be some pretty extreme UV levels for his skin to take damage, and he figured the same would be true of Loki.

He kept up a low dialogue, trying to be patient, to keep his own anxiety free from his voice. This was a terrible idea, why had he even thought this would work, he was probably needlessly stressing Loki the fuck out. 

When the fear finally lessened, it looked like it tore out a heaping of energy on its way out of Loki's body. 

And then it tore out most of the contents of his stomach. 

Bucky grimaced as Loki retched into the dirt. He pulled a water bottle from his pack and tried to ignore the black flecks he saw come up that definitely hadn't been in anything Loki had eaten. 

Loki's pale skin glistened in the sun, the sweat evaporating quickly in the heat. His eyes were unfocused, seemingly as bleached of color as the rest of him. 

Bucky gave him a minute before he approached. Loki cringed when Bucky held out the water bottle, then looked embarrassed after he peered up at the item. He ripped the offering from Bucky's grip and downed most of it in one go, dropping it carelessly into the dust beneath him.

Bucky held his hand out, offering help up. "You wanna stay here, or keep going? Or we can go back to the lab if you can't handle it."

Loki's features contracted in irritation. He ignored Bucky and used the rock wall to pull himself up. Then he determinedly stumbled off in a direction, hand still braced for support.

Bucky picked up the discarded bottle and followed him a few paces behind. He stayed close in case Loki collapsed, but not so close he'd feel overly threatened. He would rather be running across the plains than this slow progress, but any time outside of the lab was a plus in his book. 

If only Loki looked like he agreed with that idea. He moved forward in starts and stops, his eyes constantly scanning for threats. He clung close to the wall, giving himself one less direction to guard as he made his laborious way farther from the lab. Bucky thought guiltily that maybe he was taking his words as a challenge rather than actually coming out here because he enjoyed it.

He didn't panic again, though Bucky noticed he avoided looking at stretches of open space for too long. 

They ended up at the expanse of water near Warrior Falls. Loki seemed drawn to the noise. He was tiring fast, but moved doggedly on like he was in a trance. He paused when the rock wall ended, giving way to rippling, calm water and a shore of smooth rock that transitioned to green plants and rich soil.

"It's a good place to stop," Bucky suggested, acting like it was for his benefit and not because Loki looked like he was about to collapse.

Loki glared at him, clearly not buying it. Bucky pretended not to notice and slung his pack off, sitting at the water's edge and pulling out the food. 

Loki sighed and warily glanced to the horizon, then flinched and pulled his gaze away. He carefully moved himself into a spot where the outcrop curved inwards, half-hiding himself in the shade and blocking at least some of his view of the openness. He pressed himself into the rock and let his head fall back, shutting his eyes, one hand pressed against his left side. 

Bucky watched his positioning with fresh anxiety. How fast were the invading cells spreading, now?

Bucky pulled out some fruit. "Hungry?"

Loki cracked his eyes open to look at the offering, then shut them again without so much as a twitch of expression. Bucky let him rest, trying not to feel troubled by the refusal. He ate his own portion, savoring the smell and sight and sound of fresh water. 

Then he pulled off his shoes and shirt. "Hey," he said.

Loki grunted in annoyance, frowning as he opened his eyes again. He stared at Bucky in confusion, eyes locking onto the exposed scars next to the metal shoulder.

"I'm going for a swim," Bucky said, ignoring the way the scrutiny made his hackles rise. "I'm setting a hundred-yard radius on the gauntlets from your current location. Don't try to go far. Just tell me when you're ready to head back."

\------------

They stayed near the falls for a couple of hours. Bucky gladly burned off some of his excess energy, checking on Loki compulsively, sure that at some point he'd bring his head back above water and Loki would be gone. The fear didn't make sense, especially considering Loki's previous behavior in actively avoiding anything that would trigger stasis. Bucky berated himself for the continuing anxiety. He had a handle on this, now. The real trouble would come in a couple of days, when ( _when,_ not if) Shuri got that stuff out of Loki and he was allowed to heal. When he realized that he would have to keep going.

Loki didn't move from his spot, though he gradually relaxed. He kept his eyes closed for the most part, though occasionally Bucky would find him watching.

When Bucky pulled himself out of the water, Loki had brought a long-fingered hand up to his forehead, the heel pressed against the bridge of his nose. His mouth was set into a pained frown, and he looked confused for several seconds when Bucky tried to gain his attention. Thankfully, he got himself out of the rock without a more physical intervention being required.

They headed back in silence. Loki kept sending Bucky odd looks that would dissolve into wariness or anger any time Bucky looked back. He shakily waited while the elevator was summoned, all but elbowing his way by Bucky in his eagerness to head down. The careless jab made Bucky immediately, primally aware of just how _strong_ Loki was physically.

Then he wondered how bad the stuff inside him must have really felt, for him to be showing it this much. 

Bucky made him some tea, tried to ignore the fact that Loki's complexion looked like it was slowly seeping back into the realm of corpse-like. 

"Can you still talk?" Bucky asked.

"Yes," Loki said, eyes directed somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. 

Thank god for that. Bucky didn't know what he was going to do if Loki went brain-dead before the surgery. Knowing that he was so powerful that his body would regenerate as soon as the cells were cleared out didn't help. "Your side's hurting you, isn't it."

Loki's nostrils flared, his frown deepening. "Said. Hurt. Before."

"I know. I mean it's hurting a lot _worse_ than before."

Loki bared his teeth, and turned his face to the side in aggravated dismissal. "Go. Away."

Bucky didn't go away. "I have a friend who used to get really sick. Sometimes when he was really hurting, he wouldn't let me help him either. Kept trying to do everything himself." 

Loki sneered, unimpressed, but Bucky was starting to get used to that sharp feeling of upset that Loki's expressions stirred in his belly. That this entire damn situation stirred.

"I'm just saying - I understand. Even if I don't like it."

\----------

It was a bad night. Loki jerked and whimpered in his sleep, woke repeatedly, twitching and shivering, before he would drift off again. Bucky took a scan in the early morning to a view of invading cells and scar tissue greatly spreading across various organs. Loki's intestines and stomach looked overrun.

Loki still moved himself to the outhouse and back, but struggled to keep back noises of pain. Bucky offered him tea and water and a smoothie, hoping the liquid would be easier on his weakening body. Loki only managed to down a third of the drinks before he spent the next several minutes with his hands pressed over his side, pale and grimacing.

Bucky took the smoothie away. Loki probably wouldn't be taken out by a lack of food, even if he still looked way too thin. 

Bucky called Shuri to update her.

"Forego food for now," Shuri said. "He will need to fast for this next surgery, anyway. I think we have found a method that will possibly weaken his tissues enough that my tools will penetrate, but I need to be one hundred percent certain the invading cells will not overtake him immediately when I employ it." 

"So it'll be soon," Bucky said. 

"As soon as tomorrow morning." 

Bucky looked over at Loki. "You hear that? Tomorrow. You only need to deal with this for one more day."

Loki didn't look up, swallowing convulsively as if he was trying his hardest to keep from vomiting.

"I will call when I am ready," Shuri said.

"I'll be waiting," Bucky said. 

"Walk," Loki said as soon as Bucky lowered his hand. The word sounded faint and slurred.

"What?" Bucky asked, thinking he'd misheard.

" _Walk_ ," Loki hissed, pointing to the screens on the wall.

Bucky hesitated, torn between the idea of getting fresh air again and the knowledge of just how fucked Loki's insides were currently becoming at a growing rate. "Okay. But if you collapse I'm gonna have to drag you back."

Loki managed to make it to the elevator, but he sat down on hard metal for the ride up. He glared up at Bucky as if daring him to comment, so Bucky kept his mouth shut. 

When the elevator came to a stop at the top, Loki pushed himself up and wandered to the rock wall. The movement was carefully slow, but there was a clear tenseness in his shoulders from being back in the open.

Loki didn't make it all the way to the water this time before he fell to his knees in the dirt, hands pressed into his pelvis. He gave a low grunt, hands pushing in hard as he panted.

Bucky came forward to help but Loki snarled to keep him back. " _Wait._ " His voice was strained, his hair wet and limp against his face with sweat. He stayed where he was, breathing steadily, before he clamped a hand against the rock and pulled himself up again. 

Bucky kept himself exactly three paces back, his mind vaguely focused on their surroundings but mostly on the signals of weakness and pain Loki sent out as he moved. 

When they reached the water's edge, Loki swayed, staring out. Then he leaned down with a grimace, and pulled off his boots.

"What are you doing?" Bucky asked, a hint of warning to his voice.

Loki dove in, streamline quick.

"Fuck. Loki!" Bucky moved forward, ready to jump in after him. 

Loki surfaced farther out, black hair flattened to his head. He directed Bucky with an irritated glance. "Swim," Loki challenged. 

Bucky reluctantly forced himself to stand down. "Careful you don't trigger the damn gauntlets," he said, still feeling the aftereffects of adrenaline.

Loki rolled his eyes. He dove back under. 

Bucky sat on the shore, body coiled and ready to jump in at a moment's notice, a low anger simmering in his belly. Loki spent most of his time under the surface when he swam. It sent Bucky's anxiety ratcheting higher each successive time he lost sight of him. 

Eventually Loki surfaced, and stayed that way. He floated on his back, eyes shut and body still. Bucky imagined the muffling quality of the water, the roar of the falls. How soothing it would be to someone that was sound sensitive.

He finally forced some of his tension to release, feeling like a jerk. 

Loki spent most of the day in the water. Bucky eventually pulled up his puzzle game to keep himself occupied, keeping half an eye on him. He ignored his hunger when it rose, not wanting to disrupt Loki for as long as possible.

It would probably be better to deal with whatever came tomorrow on an empty stomach, anyway.

The hours passed and the sun began to drop down, warm temperatures cooling. Bucky was ready to suggest they head back and gearing himself up for the possible argument _that_ would invoke, when his Kimoyo Beads alerted him to King T'Challa's call.

He wasn't expecting the king to open with an apology when he answered. "White Wolf, I am sorry I have not spoken to you since appointing your new role."

Bucky frowned. "You're busy. You have a kingdom to run."

T'Challa raised his eyebrows. "Yes, and that includes the situation in that lab. You have a critical role in the oversight of Loki as our prisoner. I trust your judgment, and your skill. But that does not mean I must not also be accessible should you have questions or needs." He paused with a frown. "Shuri has informed me what would be required for his upcoming surgery."

Bucky swallowed, his eyes going to where Loki drifted on his back in the water. "She said it would be tomorrow morning."

T'Challa looked grim. "She does not think the Design Group will be able to develop an effective form of anesthesia in the time required. The herb has enhanced the power of his cells so much that they would filter out any drug in a near instant."

Bucky's stomach dropped. The time suddenly loomed in his mind not as a life-saving event, but as something much more sinister and traumatizing. "She'll do what she needs to do," he said, trying to keep his memories back.

T'Challa was not fooled by his steady tone. "I would not force you to be there." He sighed. "We are already crafting restraints. The surgical process will be...extensive."

Bucky considered the out. Loki would come out of the surgery recovered, whether or not he was there. And maybe he'd come out of it better ( _"the fist of Hydra"_ ) if he didn't have his main jailer there adding to what was sure to be a looming memory of trauma for a long time to come. It'd sure as hell save _Bucky_ some nightmares. 

But it felt too much like he'd be running away. And, dammit, he'd spent so much time already trying to convince Loki that he had his best interests at heart, it would feel like a betrayal to bail on him at such a critical point. Like he was abandoning him on top of shirking his duties.

"I'll be there," Bucky said. God, there had to be _something_ they could do to help the pain. 

T'Challa nodded his acceptance and approval, reinforcing Bucky's belief that he was making the right choice. "I cannot be in attendance for the entire surgery," T'Challa said, "but I will be sure to visit before and after."

"See you tomorrow, then, I guess," Bucky said.

T'Challa's mouth pulled into a sad smile. "Bast willing, Shuri will work fast."

"She doesn't do anything else," Bucky said.

When they hung up, Bucky looked up to the water, thinking that now they really needed to head back. 

Loki wasn't at the surface. 

Bucky jumped to his feet, stretching his gaze, thinking that maybe Loki had just gone under again for a moment like he'd done before. 

After a full minute, there was still no sign of him.

"Goddamn it. Loki!" Bucky's cry echoed out over the sound of the distant falls. He thought he saw a patch of bubbles rise to the surface two dozen meters out, but nothing came after.

He leapt in. The water became a rock-lined bottom, growing clear away from the dirt shore. He had to pump with his legs more than his arm for speed, but eventually he caught a flash of gold and pale skin. Loki rested on the bottom, unmoving, black hair floating upwards and bubbles clinging to his face.

Bucky grabbed him, half prepared for Loki to fight, but he remained limp as he was dragged to the surface. Bucky gasped in air and kicked them towards the shore. Exposed to the sunlight, the tinge of grey that made up Loki's skin showed in sickly relief.

As did the patch of black that peeked up over his tunic at his collarbone.

He wasn't breathing. Bucky pushed Loki's head to the side so the water could drain from his mouth. When his fingers brushed over the new section of black scarring Loki seized, eyes shooting open as he vomited water. Bucky pulled away as Loki heaved and coughed in the aftermath, skin clammy and pale.

Finally, Loki went limp, and rolled onto his back. His expression was dull, exhausted. Empty.

"What the hell was that," Bucky asked, heart still pounding.

Loki's throat bobbed. His eyes were wet, dark lashes clumped together. Weighed down by water, Shuri's tunic clung to every line of his body, showing clearly the outline of his ribs, his concave stomach.

He didn't answer.

 _Is that it? Is your mind gone?_

" _Loki,_ " Bucky hissed, and finally there was a flinch in response. He lowered his voice, but wasn't able to keep it entirely free of emotion. "What the fuck happened. Is it that shit inside you?"

Finally, a response - Loki's lips stretched and he laughed, the sound sending shots of anxiety straight down Bucky's spine. Then he went quiet, at once again looking tired and bleak. His voice when he spoke sounded faint, especially around his consonants. "Find. Death."

Bucky blinked rapidly, rage and sorrow warring as he looked back out across the water. 

He imagined Loki, seeing Bucky distracted, taking his chance and just sinking to the bottom. Praying against all odds that it would be the end of everything.

"Would that even kill you?" Bucky asked, very much doubting that it would. "You'd probably just end up in stasis at the bottom of the water if I left. And then the cells would keep spreading. You'd feel it all. The only difference would be you'd have water in your lungs." And Bucky could that to his steadily growing catalogue of horrific images he was cultivating from this situation.

Loki's forehead crumpled, tears escaping his eyes to run down the sides of his face. He trembled, wet hair and clothes and hands stained brown from moist earth. 

Broken. As much as a person could be broken.

"Come on," Bucky said after he received no answer. "Let's get you back." 

Loki either wouldn't or couldn't rise on his own. Bucky quickly found that touching anywhere near his left side or lower back resulted in a growling scream and violent pulling away. He scanned him with Kimoyo Beads in frustration, tried to find the points of Loki's body that were safest to touch. He had to ignore the absolute shitshow of lesions that was presented to him in the scan, mauling organs and bone, covering his fucking _lungs and heart_. How was Loki even functioning, now? How was he not screaming with constant agony? 

How was he going to make it through even one more night at the rate this was going?

Bucky went back in, precision targeting the spots most free of the cells and that would afford him the best leverage to brace Loki against him. Loki cried out softly but didn't fight him as he hefted him up. 

"Just one more night," Bucky told him as they headed back, even through his own doubt. He didn't mention the fact that there would be no anesthesia for the surgery, didn't know how to bring it up. If he even should. 

Loki already thought the worst of them. He was probably expecting it.

There were no more screams, but Loki moaned lowly in pain every ten or so steps. Bucky cursed internally after every single one. What would be more agonizing - letting the invading cells take him completely until Shuri found a way to make him unaware for the surgery, or digging through him without anesthesia before they reached that level? 

If he could have, Bucky thought that maybe he would have put a bullet in the bastard's brain back on that shore. Put him out of his misery for good.

If he could have. 

They hadn't made it very far when Loki tensed against him and pulled them to a complete stop. Bucky thought it was from more pain from the lesions - but then he felt it, too. A vibration on the wind, hovering close. Subtle. 

_Dangerous._

Bucky immediately pulled Loki back and down, ignoring his muffled cry of pain as he blocked him with his body. He scanned the horizon, nerves on edge. "What the hell?"

A moment after that, the cloaked airship opened fire.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I gotta say it? I'm gonna say it.
> 
>  
> 
> **Warnings for whump.**
> 
>  
> 
> Next chapter will be up Saturday the 19th.

Bucky's ears were ringing. His entire body felt mashed to a pulp - but most of all his head blared with pain. He tasted cloth and blood, felt something wide and tight wrapped around his stomach and wrist, his hand pinned at his back by metal.

A scream wrenched through his wrecked ears and he came awake fully at the stabbing pain, almost curled inwards in reflex to escape. He resisted movement with effort, using the pain to help himself focus. He waited in instinctive stillness for a recitation of words that didn't come.

It took a few seconds for his brain to clue in. _You're not there, idiot. Hydra collapsed. Shuri fixed you._

He carefully squinted his eyes open to a spinning room.

Metal walls. Small space. Not the lab.

A holding cell.

His adrenaline washed cold through his blood. He ran through an assessment of his condition to focus, to distract himself from the closeness of the walls. His head felt like someone had tried their hardest to unsuccessfully knock his head off ( _or wipe him_ ) with blunt force trauma. Vestibular function was damaged - that was why the room wouldn't stop spinning, curdling his gut with nausea. 

His clothes were dry where they were exposed to air, but still damp where his body was pressed into the metal floor. He'd been out for at least a few hours, but probably not a full day. 

The restraint around his wrist was magnetized. Likely vibranium. It wouldn't budge when he strained against it. 

The scream came again.

_Loki._

They'd been attacked.

Bucky kept himself down and still so as to not draw attention. His Kimoyo Beads and the Stabilizing Beads were still on his arm, a comforting smoothness against his skin. He only needed to gesture to call Shuri or King T'Challa, but if his captors caught him at it there was no guarantee they'd keep him alive. Right now, at least, they seemed to favor not killing him, or they would have done it already. 

There were men speaking just outside the cell door, their voices low. The ringing in his ears was too loud and constant for him to make out their words. 

He tried to ignore his rising panic. The cell was too tiny for a Wakandan prison. Limited space, which meant he was probably on an airship - the same one that had attacked? 

That awful scream, a third time, and he couldn't help his flinch. _God, Loki._

The men noticed. "Sergeant Barnes is awake."

 _Damn._ He'd hoped for more time to plan.

Bucky struggled to his knees as the door opened and the room spun faster, his sense of balance ruined. Two men in tactical armor stepped inside, rifles leveled at his head. Their faces were masked. They signaled more men outside the door, who entered and double checked that his restraints were still in place before they grabbed him and forced him out into the wider cabin of the airship.

When he was able to focus again through the shockwaves in his aching head - _don't vomit, you're gagged, you'll aspirate_ \- he saw that Loki was on the floor. He looked half-dead, moaning, glazed eyes rolling. More masked men stood with their guns directed at him, as if they'd do any good. They were poised with confidence but still tensed for danger. One of them lashed out with a booted foot when Loki's hand ventured too close in the midst of his pained writhing.

That scream again, horrendous and pain-filled, as Loki curled away from the blow. Black scarring was leeching up above his tunic, the patch at his collarbone spreading over his neck. His wild gaze found Bucky, his hands clawing into the floor as he choked back further sounds of agony. 

Loki was unbound, but he wasn't moving his legs. At all. 

_Shit._

Bucky felt his stance widen and his body go still against his wavering sight. An itch began in the back of his mind. He took in the number of weapons, carefully tested the restraint at his back again. 

_What the fuck is going on,_ he would have asked, but was prevented by the cloth in his mouth. 

"I apologize for the sonic cannon," one of them said, drawing Bucky's attention. Probably their leader. "We thank you for your service in keeping our enemy contained after the princess released him. There will be no chance of him threatening our people again."

Bucky looked to the cockpit of the airship, the view beyond the glass entrenched by fog. He couldn't get his wobbling vision focused enough to make out what the pilot was seeing on the panels projected in front of him. He couldn't see where they were, or what their heading was.

"But you mustn't worry, Sergeant Barnes, for death is not on the agenda for you. We will release you to make a home elsewhere. The majority of the world is no longer focused on the search for the Winter Soldier. I trust you are skilled enough to hide in plain sight, as you once did." A pause, and the man's words took on a pointed tone. "You would, of course, do everything in your power to also avoid being located by the king."

 _Oh, I would, would I?_ Not killing him was needlessly sloppy. There were too many variables with enhanced captives. Too many risks. He didn't see an opportunity yet, but he was sure one would come. 

They wouldn't get anywhere with trying to damage Loki, even if their rough handling caused him immeasurable pain.

As if to illustrate Bucky's thoughts, a booted foot came down on Loki's back. He seized, choking out a strained sound before bile came rushing out of his mouth. The itch in Bucky's mind grew stronger.

"He does not like that," someone commented. Bucky thought they were referring to Loki until hands clamped hard over his shoulders and his vision was blocked by their leader stepping in close. He tightened his body, staring up, imagining the back of the man's head exploding outwards in a precision headshot. The shame that followed was distant.

"You are concerned for his treatment," the man said. "That is...disappointing. You seemed like you held Wakanda's safety in higher regard. That is why we allowed your continued rehabilitation within our borders without protest." He stepped back, pointing towards Loki. "But bringing this one in was a stretch too far. The king is too kind. He does not see where his kindness will lead." 

Loki tried and failed to rise under the boot that pinned him, gasps ripping from his throat.

Their leader shrugged. "Though at this point it appears as though his disease has made him little more than a mindless beast." He held up a sleek and silver pen-shaped object. "This is a prototype scalpel made from the blueprints of surgical instruments that Princess Shuri has developed. We made some adjustments in our replication to weaponize it. For your sake, we will attempt to make his death a quick one."

He handed it off to another man, who loaded it into his gun. 

They'd brought him out here so he could watch Loki die. 

Bucky's list of options and estimated time for escape suddenly narrowed to a dismal gap.

_Oh. Fuck._

"And now you have heard me, so I will hear you."

The cloth was untied and ripped from Bucky's mouth. He worked his jaw, fiery pain jabbing his still-ringing ears at the movement, and felt dried blood pull at the stubble on his face. 

His voice was gruff. "What happens when the king finds out what you did?" 

"He will not. We will leave evidence for your death at the hands of the prisoner. But even if he did, I consider this an acceptable sacrifice for my country. You did not see what this man did to my brothers, but you know how dangerous he is. He is too great a threat to dismiss."

Bucky felt the Kimoyo Beads around his wrist, and the Stabilizing Beads above them. The beads that Shuri had developed to protect him from Loki's energy blasts, that synced to the control of the gauntlets.

He clamped his eyes shut against the fury in his blood and the idea forming in his mind. _You can't. Just let him die - he fucking_ wants _it._

Either way, he'd lost his place. These men must have been War Dogs, even if they wouldn't say it. Their clothes and weapons were meant to blend in outside of Wakanda. They were just trying to protect their home from the criminals that had invaded it.

The sound of another harsh blow against skin, a barked angry word. Loki let out a shriek, full of agony. Bucky went motionless, and let the red overtake his brain.

The man's voice wasn't unkind. "Nothing else to say?"

Bucky opened his eyes, and thought a quiet apology to the men around him, to Anwuli and the kids, to Shuri and King T'Challa - to _Steve._

( _"Buck, stop, you're gonna kill someone!"_ )

"No," he answered. "I hate talking."

He deactivated the Gauntlet Stabilizers. The rings on Loki's fingers shrunk back into the cuffs.

Green light ripped through the airship.

\------------

Bucky fluttered his eyes open as smoke burned through his airways. He coughed reflexively, setting off stabbing signals in a dozen spots of torment throughout his body, and took in more smoke when he gasped.

There was earth beneath his back. His spine was strained, his arm fiery anguish where it was still trapped beneath him. Like someone had taken out the bones and stuffed it full of broken glass.

The fall hadn't killed him.

_It never does._

He blinked tears out of his eyes and tried to focus. _Ignore it. Deal with the immediate danger._

Snow-capped mountains stood tall against the horizon. Broken pieces of the airship trailed off towards them, scorched black with green fire.

He stared at the wreckage with a sinking feeling. _Didn't even need the trigger words, Barnes. Shuri fixed your mind, but she couldn't wipe away the decay in your damn soul._

Energy lashed above him, sending wild vibrations rumbling straight through Bucky's chest. He rolled over onto his side, shouting as he jostled his damaged arm. 

Loki was propped up on his hands a distance away, his body still limp from the waist down. The ground beneath him had crumbled into a crater. His eyes were glowing an unholy green, a thousand firefly lights wafting from his skin to become a frenzied cloud, bolts of energy piercing between them. 

"Loki," Bucky said, his throat immediately tightening in response and forcing him to cough to clear it.

Loki's eyes latched onto him, his brow drawing together in confusion. He twitched and then was suddenly right next to Bucky - and either Bucky's sight had _really_ gone to shit or Loki had just _teleported._ He moved his hands to the wide restraint at Bucky's waist. The energy around him faded as he came too close to the barrier of the Stabilizing Beads. He paused, eyes darting over the metal belt, before he snarled and gripped harder at it and just _pulled._

Bucky muffled a scream as the restraint broke open and new pain lanced at his release - _dislocated shoulder, wrist broken, additional fractures along the arm, spine feels like Wilson did a falcon dive right through the nerve roots_ \- and when the world careened and spun around him at least he could throw up without being worried he'd choke on it.

He moved carefully to his knees when he'd caught his breath. Loki had shrunk back from him, on his side with his hands tight over his ears. His face had gone fully grey, like a living corpse rotting from the inside out. Somehow, he was still moving what was left of himself. 

"We have to get you back," Bucky said, panting around his own weakness, waiting for his body's pain signals to shut the fuck up a little before he tried moving again. "Shuri's probably got everything ready for the surgery." A glance up revealed the sun was already climbing into the sky. Had she tried to contact him yet?

Loki dropped his hands. He stared in incomprehension, tense and trembling. 

Bucky's arm was fucked six ways from Sunday, so using his beads to call anyone was out. "We have to get you back," he tried again. _And how exactly are you going to do that, dumbass?_

Something hit his chest with a sharp pain. Bucky looked down and saw a dart had pierced through his shirt. He felt a warm tingling spreading outwards, followed quickly by numbness. _Shit._

He heard shouting carry on the air. Loki flinched at the noise and hunched his shoulders up. Figures with guns rushed over the ground towards them.

A leaden tiredness was quickly overtaking Bucky's limbs, dimming the pain and panic in his body. He struggled against it. "If you can teleport, get the hell out of here. They haven't trapped you yet. Don't risk it."

Loki's eyes popped open with a feral anger. He turned a frustrated gaze on the two sets of beads around Bucky's wrist, then clawed his hands around them.

The pain of the touch jarred up Bucky's throat even through the drugged numbness. " _Don't!_ " he reflexively hissed, too late. Loki pulled. The beads shattered and fell from his wrist.

Loki grabbed him, and there was a loud crack like thunder. The world changed, and faded away.

\----------

When Bucky fought back to wakefulness, his surroundings were dark and full of hard, smooth surfaces. Quiet, except for the fading ringing in his ears.

His body felt weighed down. He lost sense a few more times, vaguely aware of a green glow at his side.

Finally, he regained full consciousness and stayed that way.

He was in a cave. The ceiling was low, so low that he'd only have inches to spare if he got to his knees. He felt the yawning crush of the limited space grab at his lungs. The sound of his agitated breaths bounced off of close walls. 

_Come on, Barnes. Don't fall to pieces. Not to any more than you already have, at least._ He broke out into a cold sweat, but eventually he managed to grit his teeth and struggle to his knees. The stiffness in his arm jackhammered up to full-on agony with the movement. A glance down to his chest revealed the tranq dart had been removed. 

It also revealed Loki, curled into himself on the ground. He was moving in a repetitive rocking motion, a hand pressed into his forehead, breaths shallow and rapid. Every so often a small noise would catch in his throat, hoarse and faint, like the bones of a whimper. The green lights above him softly sizzled against rock.

Bucky exhaled shakily, tried to batter down the need to rush forward into the dark tunnel, to find the exit and open air. The threats were gone, for now. 

All except for the biggest one. 

He could feel alternating heat and cold fill the cavern as Loki continued to give off energy. The vibrations of it seemed stronger now that Bucky didn't have the Stabilizing Beads to protect him. He kept half expecting his body to suddenly explode like General Okoye's spear had when Loki had first been uncovered. 

It'd be a quick death, at least.

He kept his voice quiet. Careful. "Loki." The name echoed around them.

Loki didn't move, didn't react, hiding most of his face under a fall of black hair.

"What the fuck was that? I thought you'd killed them all." The words were a blend of accusatory and relieved, Bucky not quite sure which way to tip.

Loki's hand twitched. His mouth moved, rasping unintelligible noise into the emptiness around them. He made a gesture, and Bucky jerked in surprise as light clustered together into a vague outline that melted into a perfect doppelganger of himself sitting in a chair. His image was staring forward, face impassive.

Bucky heard his own voice echo off the cave walls, like an old recording.

_"Don't attack anyone."_

The image faded, bursting back into green firefly lights.

Bucky blinked, his awe and confusion combining into a thrilling tangle. _How the fuck did you do that?_ The words his double had said belatedly registered. "You... _that's_ why you let them live? Because of some fucking offhand comment I made a goddamn week ago?"

Loki's face creased tight in a mixture of pain and irritation. His hand shook against his forehead, pawing at his scalp. The sizzling at the cave walls grew louder.

Bucky sighed. "Where the hell are we, anyway?"

No answer.

"Loki."

Still nothing.

Bucky struggled to keep his voice calm. "We should get you out of here. Shuri can help you."

The energy over Loki spun out wildly, whipping past Bucky's face and cracking into the sides of the cave. Bucky froze as small, charred pieces of rock fell to the ground, clattering like a warning. 

His heart felt like a round shot being fired into his ribs. "Do you really want to hide in a cave until that shit eats every single cell in your body? We don't even know if you'd die from it, or if you'd just..." _Suffer. Stay on living, unable to move, without a mind. Just a mass of meat for pain._

Loki gave a low whimper and pulled his upper body in tighter, the ground beneath him starting to crack. Bucky tensed as the damage spider-webbed beneath his knees, instinctively turning to take in how far it stretched.

A flash of silver glinted in the side of his vision. He turned to look and saw the smooth end of a pen-shaped cylinder protruding from the side of a green-clad thigh.

"Shit. Loki, _look_ at your fucking leg."

The wildness of the energy in the air tamed, clustered together and moved as one over Loki's lower half. When it reached the glinting object, Loki blinked his eyes open with a frown. He laboriously pushed himself up with a hiss, shaking his hair from his face. His eyes widened. He reached with a trembling hand to yank the item from his flesh, fresh blood welling from the wound.

A blue glow shone at the protruding bladed tip - Shuri's prototype scalpel for the surgery. Their captors must have tried to get a shot in before Loki had escaped.

Loki turned back to his thigh, hand groping along the skin, but the wound had already closed thanks to his enhanced godly healing. He suddenly looked pissed, his chest heaving. With a growl he flattened his hand on the rock ground, fingers spread.

Bucky went still in alarm. "What are you doing?"

Loki swung the scalpel down into the back of his hand, penetrating through skin and bone with a crunch.

Bucky cursed loudly. "Don't _do that_!"

Loki flinched from his shout, but recovered quickly. He watched eagerly, obsessively, as blood welled up around the injury. When he pulled the tool free, the wound was filled by green light. 

Shuri had really done it - she'd made something that could cut through even Loki's previously impenetrable tissues. 

Bucky swallowed around his nausea. "They said that was just the prototype. If we go back, Shuri'll have designed something even better."

Loki watched a drop of blood form and grow at the tip of the prototype. 

Bucky shuddered, not looking directly at it. "It's gonna hurt. She wasn't able to make anything for anesthesia." Bucky felt his throat tighten, not liking the complete lack of reaction on Loki's face at that statement. The lights around them were beginning to resume their wild darting. "But you can heal. You can have your mind back."

There was a pull at the edges of Loki's lips, one of his smiles that wasn't a smile - the self-deprecating one, with the bitter edge. He laughed. And then he kept laughing. The sound built, filled with something that pierced into Bucky's ears and made him hold his breath until it was over.

Loki lowered his head, shuddering in pain, as the remnants of his echoing voice faded around them. He dropped the tool to the ground. 

Bucky stared at the discarded instrument. Wakanda was full of miracle cures for the body, but the baggage that came with that kind of pain wouldn't be fixed overnight. If it could be fixed at all. Maybe Loki just...really didn't want to face that.

And if the Wakandans found out what he'd done to that airship, what Bucky had _let him do_...

_("Find. Death.")_

Bucky felt his nerves crack open and spill emotion through him in crashing waves. He turned his face away, stared at the green lights that spun chaotically around the stone walls. 

_Just stop. Stop thinking like he's you. Just because you keep clawing for the life you don't deserve, doesn't mean he will. Stop thinking you have any idea of how his mind works or what he's feeling or what's best for him and everyone else. Stop pretending that you're protecting anyone._ He _was the one that decided to let those men live, not you. Give him the_ fucking choice.

He ignored the distant howling in his mind, the one that sounded like someone was being electrocuted. "Or, we can use it to try to kill you."

He could see Loki pull his head up in the periphery of his sight, pale face haloed by black. Ragged breaths sounded through the faint ringing in his ears.

"My arm's useless right now," Bucky went on, "and my balance is still a little fucked. But help me get that aimed at the base of your skull, or your heart, and I can kick it hard enough that it'll pierce the right spot."

Loki's eyes had rounded, a spark of some unidentifiable emotion starting behind them. His eyes moved back down to the prototype.

"It'd be over." Bucky forced himself to keep talking over the hollow feeling in his gut. "I figure if we get it in the right spot, and hold it there long enough so your energy can't regenerate the tissue around the injury...it should work." He would have shrugged if his arm wasn't so damaged. "I'm really good at killing people." 

Loki panted, his eyes searching. Hungry. Bucky felt his body begin to slide into that familiar readiness for offensive violence as he stared back.

"It's your choice," Bucky said.

Loki's face suddenly spasmed and he reeled back, lowering his head as he let out a strained sound. His hands clawed into rock and crushed it beneath his fists as he struggled to breathe around whatever new and sudden pain had overtaken him. 

The sight made Bucky's heart lurch. _You should decide soon, before that stuff takes over and you can't move at all._ He didn't say it out loud. 

He waited.

Loki made a noise halfway between a growl and a grunt. When he opened his eyes they were filled with tears, his gaze furious. He pushed himself up with shaking arms.

Bucky's muscles seized but he forced himself to stay still as bloodied fingers dug sharply into his thigh. Streaks of red were left in their wake when they moved up to grip into the collar of his shirt. The second hand clamped over his metal shoulder, Loki using it as leverage to pull himself up so they would be face to face. Bucky braced his body, his sore back and arm blasting pain at taking the added weight. His breath quickened, but he met Loki's tear-filled eyes steadily even as the rage in them swelled. 

Green light shot free in frenetic bolts, spreading outwards like ballista fire. Rock began to rumble and collapse, coating the air with dust. The temperature went from biting cold to burning hot in whiplash turns. Vibrations pounded harder and harder against Bucky's injuries until he could barely breathe under the press of the pain and his instincts screamed - _attack, run, anything, you idiot!_

The hand on Bucky's shirt yanked him forward, brought his face far too close to bared teeth. Glowing green eyes bore into him, backed by desperation. Loki's voice was garbled, gravelly - ruined. " _Not. Stop._ "

Bucky frowned. "What?"

The world shifted.

Open air rushed against Bucky's face, the return to natural brightness painfully blinding. Loki released his shirt and Bucky turned his head wildly to search for threats as he regained his bearings. 

They were back where they'd landed after falling from the airship. The men who'd attacked them were nowhere in sight.

"We need to get out of the open," Bucky said. Like clockwork, an airship sounded overhead. He cursed through the sting of alarm, trying to rise. "If you hold on to me, I can run us into cover." It would be spectacularly painful, but he'd moved through worse.

Green light swelled at Loki's palms, a harsh pressure shoving him roughly back down to his knees. Bucky clenched his jaw against the sudden terror at being pinned. Loki was staring at him with eyes creased. He shook his head once.

Bucky jerked against the hold. "What the hell are you doing? We have to _move._ "

A blur of red and gold fell from the sky.

Loki snarled, still holding onto Bucky's shoulder, his magic going wild over them. But instead of destroying the incoming form, it parted around it.

It wasn't more War Dogs. It was General Okoye.

She landed next to them, straightening and narrowing her eyes at Loki. She pressed her hand over her own Stabilizing Beads, and the rings shot out from Loki's cuffs to clamp back over his fingers. The green lights abruptly faded, the pressure keeping Bucky down released.

Loki lost his hold, collapsing back to writhe like a worm in the dirt. He panted in anger and fear as he stared up at General Okoye, legs at an odd angle beneath him. Her hands manipulated the beads again, and the tendons in Loki's neck stood out as he strained against the unseen force slowing him down.

"Stop," Bucky growled, realizing all at once what Loki had been asking him before they'd teleported. "Don't put him in stasis. He came back on his own."

General Okoye turned sharp eyes on him, hand still poised over her beads. "Promise me right now that my warriors will be safe from him, and I will do as you ask."

Bucky thought of the masked men on the airship. Did she know? He swallowed. "It's not his fault. I let him go."

General Okoye glowered. "And now I must contain him." 

At her words, Loki's eyes fell shut and he just...stopped fighting. Went completely limp against the ground, tears dripping down the sides of his face to darken the dirt. Like he'd done after Bucky had dragged him out of the water, when all he'd been hoping for was death.

"Fuck," Bucky said, blinking rapidly against the burning in his eyes. "General, please."

General Okoye stared down at Loki, her hand hovering over the Stabilizing Beads.

She hesitated. 

Her eyes went to Bucky again. She raised her chin, and changed the angle of her wrist to speak into her Kimoyo Beads. "He has been secured. You may land."

She hadn't triggered the stasis. _Thank god._ Bucky struggled up, ignoring the pain in his back and crushed arm. "General-"

"Ah!" General Okoye turned her spear on him, pointing it at his throat. "Do _not_ move."

Bucky sat back on his heels as the Dora Milaje exited the airship to circle him and Loki. "It's not his fault," he said again. "They were going to kill him with Shuri's surgical prototype and dump me somewhere outside of Wakanda."

General Okoye scowled. "Who?"

"I don't know. They had masks." Loki howled when he was lifted from the ground. Bucky flinched. "Don't touch his left side or lower back!" 

Ayo was with them. She spoke quickly in Xhosa, and the Dora moved their hands away from the specified areas. The noises Loki made choked off into quieter, muffled sounds as he was carried away.

General Okoye motioned Bucky to his feet. "We will stabilize your injuries until they can be seen to. Then, you will explain everything."


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, then, folks. Another turning point. The warnings for the usual nastiness you can expect from this story also apply to this chapter.
> 
> Next chapter will be up the 26th.

When they arrived at the palace, Bucky was placed in a cell to wait, though the only thing that he felt distinguished it as such was the fact that there would be vibranium energy shutting him in. The rest of the room was larger than the apartment he'd used to hide in Romania. Even the elevated cot against the far wall looked like some fancy piece of furniture out of a five star hotel, all luxurious blankets and pillows in dark and gold tones. 

His arm throbbed. It was wrapped in a splint of vibranium and cloth, and he knew he should elevate it to help the swelling, but right then he felt he needed the pain as a reminder.

General Okoye stood outside the door as it was locked shut with energy shielding. "We are calling forth the other Elders so you may speak on what happened," she said. "Then we will decide what is to be done."

"Where's Loki?" Bucky asked.

General Okoye tipped her head in indication. "In the cell beside yours. We are monitoring his condition. The Great Mound has been prepped and is posed for his arrival."

"Take him," Bucky said, even as his mind clamored for him to shut the hell up. He knew now that it was well into the afternoon - hours after the intended surgery time. 

General Okoye spoke in a stern voice. "We will speak to him when it is time for him to be questioned."

"He can barely _speak_ ," Bucky argued. "He's probably not gonna be able to think, the longer we wait."

"Perhaps you should have thought of that before you took down an airship using his powers," General Okoye snapped, and Bucky went quiet. "The investigation is still underway. The mountains are being scanned. I must go. Shuri will arrive soon to see to your injuries, and then we will speak again." 

After she left, Bucky moved right up to the shielding on the door. He tried to peer out through it, to see if he could catch sight of the neighboring cell. No such luck.

He suddenly wished that they hadn't stuck him in this glorified method of containment. He knew he deserved a lot worse. For everything. 

"Loki," he said, voice raised, "god, I'm - _so_ fucking sorry."

No one answered.

\-----------

He was sitting on the cot and staring at nothing when Shuri entered, carrying a small white medical kit bag. She took in his condition before she rushed forward and carefully put her hands on the sides of his face. This close he could see the prominent dark circles that seemed to swallow her eyes.

"Shit." She leaned back, meeting his gaze fixedly and with the intensity she usually showed when she was evaluating a project. Probably checking for a concussion. "How is your hearing?"

Bucky shrugged, ignoring the chorus of points of pain that sung at the motion. "There's a ringing, still. They hit us with a sonic cannon."

Her rage swelled over. "Fucking _imbeciles._ They could have killed you!"

Bucky stayed passive as she tilted his head for a closer look at his visible injuries. "I'm fine," he said. "Loki's - that stuff's spread - he couldn't _move his legs_ -"

Shuri cut him off. "Bucky, do _not_ tell me you are fine when your arm looks like an infant constructed it out of Play-Doh." Her voice softened. "I was just in to see Loki. He is still critical. But his energy is...incredibly strong. It looks like it did some good for him to have so much access. The spread of the invading cells has decreased in certain patches." She scanned Bucky, took in his injuries, then began pulling tools from her bag. "You do not have organ damage, thankfully." 

Bucky tried to relax as she brought up devices that made humming noises and emitted light. Normally he would feel up to asking her about how each of them worked, but just then he knew he had to save the mental energy. 

During the process, his anxiety saw fit to continuously remind him that while he was sitting here getting tended to by the very best of Wakandan medical science, every moment that stretched would be another moment Loki was alone. Still in agony.

He winced when she inserted the thin end of a drill-looking tool into a damaged ear, but when she was done the pain and the ringing were both gone. She repeated the procedure with the other ear. 

She spoke as she worked. "Loki is different. He showed no aggression or contempt, even though he was very afraid and in great pain. Not even when I told him I had not been able to formulate a working anesthesia for his enhanced cells. At first I thought his brain had been so damaged as to affect his emotions further. What happened?"

Bucky geared his brain up for a response. "The men that had us had your prototype for the surgery. They wanted to kill him with it."

Shuri looked pained. "Okoye told me. The Design Group has been dismissed for questioning." 

Even if he deserved it, the thought that one or more of the scientists that had helped to remove his triggers might have considered supporting throwing him out of Wakanda was not a happy one. "Do you think any of them might have been in on it?"

"I do not know. We have been very busy, and there were multiple deliveries into the lab." She sighed. "What happened next?"

"They hit him with it when we escaped. It cut through him like butter. Made him finally realize we weren't just talking out of our asses. It's why he gave himself back up."

A relief stirred in Shuri's eyes. "I was told by my brother to wait to proceed with the surgery until the Tribal Council has been called. They move quickly. They should be here soon. The waiting is the price for our transparency with our people. If I believe there is even a slight chance they will be late, you'd better bet your ass I am taking him with me to the Great Mound. _I_ know you were not rampaging with him across the countryside with the intent to murder."

"Maybe," Bucky said. He let his gaze slide away to a large black wall sculpture of a snarling panther. "I let him go, Shuri. I knew he could have vaporized every one of those men. I deactivated the gauntlets anyway."

"You saved his life, and possibly your own," Shuri said, her voice vehement. When he didn't answer, she brought his gaze back to hers with a hand on his face. "Bucky, remember our talks about that look? Do _not_ let your guilt drive you to do something stupid. When you are questioned, tell the Council what happened, and no more."

Bucky tightened his lips. "Wasn't planning on more."

"Good." She moved on to his arm, scanning it with her beads and cursing under her breath. "Is this from the fall?"

"Yeah. Landed on it."

"Then you are lucky it was not worse."

Bucky flashed on an image of a bloody stump in the snow. _Believe me, I know._

\-----------

Shuri numbed Bucky's arm, set it even further, and told him to keep it in a device that was meant to stimulate increased healing and bone growth. This meant he could literally _watch_ his bones fix themselves after they were rearranged into the correct place. The feeling wasn't the most pleasant. After the device was done, his limb was sore and stiff, but functional.

Just in time for the Dora Milaje to escort him to the Tribal Council. 

"With respect to your injuries, you will not be restrained," he was told. "But you must follow every spoken direction."

Shuri brushed a comforting hand over his shoulder as she stepped by. "I will stay with Loki."

Bucky nodded; a small part of his tension eased. He followed between the Dora with his back straight, ignored the anxiety as he was walked through the tall doors of the Council Chambers. The room was large, lined with guards and giant stone sculptures of each tribe's insignia. The Elders were sitting in the center of it - he could feel the moment when every scrap of attention from each one of them was directed on him. 

He was moved front and center before the Council. The floor became clear glass beneath his feet, the feel and sound as he walked on it insistently familiar. The world shuddered sideways and he could hear helicarrier engines roaring. 

( _"Your work has been a gift to mankind."_ )

 _Keep it together, Barnes,_ he berated himself, still half expecting to see Captain America, battle-ready and resigned, when he looked up. 

Steve wasn't there, of course. Bucky was still in Wakanda, and the last couple of years had really happened. 

The vestiges of the memory finally lost their grip as his mind decided to focus on the current ( _threats_ ) situation. The Elders of the Tribal Council were watching him as one. 

He tried to steady his breathing, thought _great job, pal, let them know just how damn unstable and dangerous you still are right off the bat._ He wasn't going to be able to keep himself together if he looked at them, so he set his gaze into the distance, through the towering windows. The Elders were no longer in his direct line of sight, but each was still in his vision.

King T'Challa gave him a nod in greeting. "White Wolf. General Okoye has informed us that one of our airships was destroyed within our borders, and that you and the prisoner Loki were found near debris from the craft. We will give you a chance now to explain to the Tribal Council what occurred to lead to these events."

( _"Mission report."_ )

 _Don't think about it. Just do it._

Bucky wet his dry lips. "Loki and I were attacked about a thousand meters east of the lab," he explained. "A sonic cannon blast from an airship. I lost consciousness, and woke restrained in a cell on board. Ship occupancy was maybe a dozen men. And Loki." He hesitated. "I think they were War Dogs."

Murmuring filled the chamber. He was careful not to look, not to see what expressions their faces held. 

General Okoye spoke. "You are not certain?"

Bucky took the cue and continued on in a steady voice. "They were masked to hide their identities. But one of them indicated that he knew what happened back when Loki stole the heart-shaped herb. He thanked me for keeping Loki contained, said they were going to kill him using the prototype tool Shuri developed for the surgery."

T'Challa's voice was low with anger. "They did have access to my sister's technology, then. Enough to steal it."

"For what purpose did they take _you_?" General Okoye asked. "You were not their target."

Bucky shrugged. "Think they just would rather I was out of the country. They said they were going to drop me off somewhere. All but threatened to kill me if I tried to contact Wakanda after they did." He steeled himself. "I deactivated Loki's Gauntlet Stabilizers. I fell from the ship, passed out again. Loki was next to me when I woke up. He was fully paraplegic from his infection. We were being shot at, so he tore off my Stabilizing Beads and teleported us into a cave. I was able to convince him to come back." _By offering to kill him,_ Bucky didn't say.

"And what happened to the rest of the men on the airship?" T'Challa asked.

Bucky shrugged. "Alive, I think. But I was the only one wearing Stabilizing Beads for protection when I let Loki go off."

The Tribal Council went quiet. Bucky kept his breathing even, his posture straight, his eyes on the sky outside the windows. 

M'Baku began to laugh.

It was high pitched, and full of mirth.

Bucky tensed, finally lowered his gaze in time to see every member of the Tribal Council turn exasperated expressions on the leader of the Jabari. 

"What did I miss?" Bucky asked, cautious.

T'Challa's lips pulled in a long-suffering frown, his eyes gleaming with disapproval as he stared at M'Baku. He gestured at Bucky. "Go on, then, since you cannot wait as we planned."

"It is fitting that you call them dogs," M'Baku said, unsuccessfully suppressing his giggles with a hand. "Because that is exactly how they looked, fleeing into Jabari Lands with their tails between their legs." He stopped laughing immediately, his face sobering as he turned on Bucky. "Did I not tell you that you would need that arm?"

"The airship was found mostly intact," General Okoye said, and presented Bucky with visual confirmation with a projection from her Kimoyo Beads. "If your words as to what happened are true, it appears that Loki decided it would be expedient to only damage the craft enough for your escape. We believe that every man on board survived and is in custody."

"And if any had died, it would only be their due for treason against the Tribal Council," M'Baku said, voice sharp.

"We will be questioning them," T'Challa agreed. "And we will check for others that may have been involved in this. Please take my sincerest apologies, White Wolf. Wakanda was meant to be a haven to protect you from outside threats. In the process, we appear to have created some new ones originating from within." T'Challa's eyes went dark with severity. "I will be making myself clearer on the consequences for such a crime."

Bucky floundered in the wake of their judgment. "But I let Loki have access to his power." 

M'Baku raised his hands in the air. "This is why I had to test you before agreeing to your station. Do you _want_ us to punish you for not allowing yourself to be kidnapped?" He turned to T'Challa. "I see why you like this one. He fits right in with your self-flagellation tendencies." 

T'Challa gazed at M'Baku in weary annoyance. "You are the one who is always detailing my shortcomings."

"Because you should feel bad," M'Baku said.

General Okoye heaved a sigh of annoyance and turned to one of the Dora lining the walls. "Replace the White Wolf's beads. Both sets."

Bucky stood still and quiet as her instructions were followed. They'd already had the items on hand. He breathed out, stunned, as he examined his new beads. 

Their faith in him made the ever-present stabbing guilt hook itself deeper.

King T'Challa laced his fingers together. "Shuri is ready. We will have our warriors escort you and Loki to the Great Mound for the surgery."

"Make sure he does not shoot _that_ ship out of the sky," M'Baku remarked.

Bucky felt a little unsteady, like his ears had been blasted out again. "Thank you," he said.

"You may retake your charge, White Wolf," King T'Challa said. "Unless you have any further questions or requests."

"Yeah." Bucky swallowed. "Actually, I do."

\----------

Shuri was just outside Loki's cell when Bucky arrived. She was giving instructions to a pair of scientists in white lab coats and two Dora. A metal stretcher hovered in the air between them, ready for a body.

Bucky forced himself not to hesitate at the sight, to keep approaching through the traces of the familiar chill that raced down his back. At least there weren't any restraints that he could see just yet.

Shuri turned to him, her expression solemn. "Loki is currently unresponsive," she said. "It's not physical. He has gone into his mind to protect himself."

 _Shit._ Bucky clenched his hand. "So what do we do?"

Shuri nodded to the stretcher. "First, you will take off your shirt and sit down."

Bucky knew what was coming. He obeyed and waited as Shuri brought over the box with his new arm, recovered from the lab. She paused, probably noticing the less than enthused expression on his face. "You are sure you want this," she said.

He nodded, and felt a bubbling of grim humor. "You remembered which arm to make, right?"

Shuri raised her eyebrows. "Yes. And I also programmed it to play the Spice Girls every fifteen minutes."

One of the scientists gave a quiet snort.

Bucky frowned in confusion. "I don't know what that is."

"Just hold still," Shuri ordered, a hint of a smile at the edges of her mouth.

It took all of ten minutes, but it felt like a lot longer. The two scientists and Shuri worked on him at once, numbing the sites around the shoulder and working the remaining metal free before it was replaced with Shuri's design. The limb came online, and Bucky was briefly overwhelmed by the resurgence of sensation from a previously lost limb. He was quick to even out, his brain easily recalling the motor functions and adapting to the new arm parameters. 

Shuri instructed him on a few exercises to make sure it was in working order, but Bucky could already tell that her tech was phenomenal. The movements were as fluid as his old arm, without the clunky loudness of the previous servomotors. 

"It will not deactivate if you are attacked with electricity," Shuri said. "I designed it so it will store most types of energy rather than become overwhelmed by them. When we have time, we should walk you through its full capabilities."

"Thank you," he said, and meant it. 

She stepped back when she was done, offering Bucky a clean shirt. "See if you can get Loki awake. I do not want him to come back to himself after we have already started the surgery."

Bucky nodded. He pulled the shirt over his head, and found he didn't miss the awkwardly jutting metal nub that he'd been hauling around for months. 

He didn't see Loki at first, when he entered the cell. Not until he saw the bedding on the cot had been pulled off, leaving a short trail leading under it. 

Loki was wedged beneath, his back to the wall, his long legs stretched out at odd angles.

"Loki," Bucky said. "Shuri's got a ship waiting."

No answer. Bucky crouched on one knee for a better look, and found Loki's eyes vacant slits. He would have thought Loki was back in stasis ( _or dead_ ) if not for the strained rise and fall of his chest.

"Loki," Bucky said again, keeping his voice soft. Not so much as a twitch. Loki's breath wheezed from his throat.

"Shit," Bucky said, digging into his pocket to pull free the noise-cancelling earbuds he'd requested. He half crawled under the cot and reached forward to place them around Loki's ears. They lit up with a blue shielding light that was meant to dampen outside auditory stimuli. Bucky used his Kimoyo Beads to call up Shuri's music, keeping the volume low.

It took a few minutes. Bucky was ready to call it and just carry Loki out of there when the thin chest suddenly expanded stiltedly as the pattern of respiration changed. Loki breathed like every inhale was a struggle, blinking rapidly as he turned his head in Bucky's direction. He opened his mouth, fighting to speak. Nothing but a faint croak emerged. 

Bucky turned off the earbuds. "Don't try to talk," he urged. "Shuri's gonna get that stuff out so you can heal. That's what you want, right?"

Loki persisted, his mouth eventually rounding out a word, even if the sound behind it was barely a whisper. 

" _Rules._ "

"Goddamn it," Bucky said. He let out a shaky exhale, and just kept reminding himself that the surgery was going to work. "Keep your head down. Don't attack anyone. Do what they say." 

Bucky didn't know if Loki nodded in response or if his head was just jerking in reaction to the pain he felt. 

He took a scan of Loki's body, trying to find the points where the disease hadn't spread. The projection showed more of him appearing to be made up of invading cells than not. Now Bucky could see how they were taking the shape of Loki's organs more fully, as if they were not only consuming him, but taking his place.

Bucky swore. "They've got a stretcher for you outside. I'm gonna lift you up and put you on it."

He pulled Loki out from beneath the cot, relieved to be free of the cramped space. He reassessed his targets quickly and hooked his arms under Loki, carefully rising to his feet. Loki's lower body was a dead weight, but his upper body seized and a ragged breath that was probably meant to be a scream came from his mouth. Bucky clenched his jaw and kept himself careful and slow, using steadiness of the new prosthetic to bear most of the weight, bracing Loki against his torso so there wouldn't be any unexpected jostling.

Shuri's eyes were bright with relief when he came out of the cell. "You magnificent man," she said, patting Bucky's arm once Loki was on the stretcher. "Loki, can you hear me?"

Loki's eyes rolled up to Shuri. He was shaking, his lips clamped together as if he was trying to keep from screaming any more.

She was clearly disquieted by the response, but soldiered on. "We are taking you for the surgery. It will not be easy, but if you agree, I guarantee that this pain will end today. My team and I will work fast."

Loki's expression didn't change. The rattling in his lungs was growing louder.

"You do not need to speak." Shuri held up her hand and made a fist. "Clench your hand like this for yes, or extend two of your fingers for no."

Loki's gaze moved to Bucky, his face so sickly grey that he looked like he'd disintegrate at even one more touch.

 _Come on,_ Bucky thought.

Slowly, Loki clenched his hand into a fist.

Shuri looked up at Bucky. "Make sure he does not fall as we move him."

\-----------

Shuri's lab was in a frenzy when he arrived, people in white coats milling in every inch. Shuri pointed to where she wanted Loki placed, just under the arch beneath the painted pillar that took up the center of the room. "Over here."

Bucky followed her instructions, but couldn't quite hide his wary gaze at the bodies that moved around him. 

Shuri noticed. "Every member of the Design Group was cleared," she told him. "The thieves acted alone."

Bucky nodded, forcing himself to visibly relax even as nervousness continued to thrum. That was good. One less point to tarnish Shuri's lab. He really hadn't wanted his damn brain to take this from him, too. 

Bucky moved to stand at the stretcher's head while the Design Group joined them and went to work cutting away Loki's clothes. Even the simple brush of fabric across the blackened areas had Loki jerking, like the cloth was a heated brand. He breathed through clenched teeth, but he didn't fight.

Shuri scanned Loki and projected a three dimensional model of his body above the table. Yellow saturated everything. She stared unflinchingly at the absolute ruin that had become of it.

"As we practiced," she told the scientists. "In pairs. One identifies the tissue and the other removes it. Not a single cell can be left behind."

Bucky swallowed. "Should I get back?"

Shuri shook her head. "No. You are going to release him from the Gauntlet Stabilizers." She pressed a finger against her Kimoyo Beads and a dome of light appeared around them. "That will prevent his energy from damaging or escaping the lab while allowing him full power to fight and heal as we remove the invading cells. I have designed the table to be similarly unaffected. If anything goes wrong, you will have control over his energy." She met Bucky's eyes. "But _nothing_ else is going to go wrong this day."

"Okay," Bucky said. 

"Keep him distracted," Shuri ordered.

 _Keep him distracted as he's torn apart. Easy._ Bucky leaned over the head of the table so Loki could see him. Black-tinged eyes rolled up to him, and god, he hoped they wouldn't have to cut into _there_ too.

"Just get through this," Bucky said, and he didn't know if he was more speaking to Loki or himself. "Just one more hell and then it's over."

Restraints popped up from the table, rings of metal lined with lights. Bucky shuttered his mind against a multitude of flashbacks. _Not now,_ he thought at himself. _Don't make this about you, help someone else for once._

Loki clamped his eyes shut and ground his teeth as the scientists reached for his arms and carefully positioned them before they were locked in place. He shook so hard against the table that Bucky was sure it would have rattled like thunder if it had been anything else but vibranium.

Projections appeared all around them, cataloguing Loki's respiration and heart rate and brain activity.

"Get ready to release the gauntlets," Shuri said. 

"Wait, hang on," Bucky said. "Loki." He put his flesh hand against Loki's cheek, feeling like shit at the flinch. Loki finally squinted his eyes open. "Just - listen to the music, okay? Focus on it. Pretend nothing else is happening." He turned the earbuds back on, setting them so any sound would be blocked except for the music they played.

Shuri nodded at him. He nodded back.

She held her hands over Loki, surgical instrument in hand. "And, now."

Bucky deactivated the Gauntlet Stabilizers. Green rushed upwards from Loki's form, but faded and wispy compared to the crackling storms of firefly light of before. 

"He is very weak," Shuri said. "Let's begin."

Bucky kept his head low and his hands on either side of Loki's face, limiting his field of vision. He tried to keep himself calm as Loki suddenly tensed, eyes going wide, air rasping up his throat. Bucky knew they had to have started, but he wouldn't let himself look, either - he didn't want anything else painting his nightmares. He only kept half an ear on what the Design Group was saying as they worked so he could track their progress.

He held Loki, and he did what he could to help.

\----------

Anything to do with the legs had come easy. Loki's spine was so ruined by the invading tissue that he had no ability to move that portion of his body enough to interfere with their work. But he still _felt_ everything, still felt the pain when they cut into muscle and drilled into bone. Despite trying to tune her out, Bucky heard when Shuri noted that the invading cells had begun to completely replace his nervous system.

The Design Group worked carefully over his arms next, clamping Loki's fingers down as they removed the disease from his hands. 

Loki kept his jaw clenched, flinching and gasping in air at intervals, moaning low when the pain was too much, his ashen skin covered by a sheen of sweat. 

He didn't scream until they forced his ribs apart to get at his organs. 

Bucky panicked at that point. "Stop," he said, voice strained. "Just give him a minute."

"One minute," Shuri said, voice severe. "Hurry."

He pulled one of the earbuds free, spoke low and fast. "Loki, breathe. They got that shit out of your legs and arms. The surgery's working. Come on, breathe."

Loki came back down from his screams, wild eyes locked up onto Bucky, each breath tailed by a harsh, faint whine. His projected heart rate was decreasing, but it was still too fast. 

"Unclamp his left arm," Bucky said. 

The member of the Design Group nearest to him stared at him like he was crazy.

"Listen to him," Shuri said, hands deep in Loki's chest cavity and - _oh,_ fuck - Bucky shouldn't have looked up.

The restraints over Loki's left arm unlocked and sank back into the table. Bucky reached out with the prosthetic and Loki instantly gripped his fingers over it, knuckles protruding as he clawed desperately and then squeezed tight against the metal hand. Vibranium plates shifted quickly in an attempt to withstand the pressure, while warning signals were sent right to Bucky's brain in a constant loop. The discomfort bordered on painful, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.

Loki could have broken him, no two ways about it. Absolutely and permanently. He could have done it in the airship when Bucky had deactivated the gauntlets, or out on the field after they'd fallen, or in the quiet of that dark and cramped cave. He could have done it even now as his own body was being peeled open and ripped apart, as the smell of his blood thickly coated every inch of the air that Bucky breathed. But each time, Loki held back.

So what the hell did that mean?

Presented with his new anchor, Loki's heart rate had slowed. He'd closed his eyes again, hissing breaths between his teeth. Still trembling in pain, but ready to endure more.

Bucky used his other hand to replace the earbud. "Okay," he said.

He heard the jump in Loki's heart rate as they started on him again. But when the other bones of his rib cage were forced apart, he only seized with a thin, breathy whimper instead of screaming his lungs out. 

Bucky kept their hands locked and his head lowered over Loki's. He didn't move away until Shuri alerted him that it was time for them to remove the lesions from Loki's brain. He swallowed bile, thought _they're almost done, over 90% of his body is disease free, this should take no time at all._

Bucky moved to the side as they locked Loki's head into a brace, felt the twitching fingers in his grip curl sharply against him. The _noises_ Loki made then, soft and frightened, like they'd been wrenched from his soul, flayed further at Bucky's emotional shields.

(" _Wipe him._ ")

He kept their fingers clamped as the Design Group went to work on Loki's mind.

\----------

Loki fell completely unconscious not long after the surgery ended, the green lights above him winking out as soon as they were done closing up his skin. Bucky reactivated the gauntlets and stared at the completely healed lines of Loki's body as the Design Group cleansed his body and the table and their tools of all traces of his blood. Shuri even ordered them to bring over a short column of a basin with a hose attached to wash Loki's hair, and then Bucky helped her dress him in fresh clothes.

Bucky was more than drained when they were done. He'd replaced his grip on Loki's hand, wanting to be physically alerted as soon as Loki woke. He let the voices waft over him as Shuri spoke with the members of her Design Group, thanking them for their hard work and dismissing them. 

"He will be able to eat as soon as he wakes," she told Bucky, drawing him back into the world. "I will find him something simple. He will likely be very hungry after all of the energy he has expelled healing himself."

 _Not to mention he's as thin as a damn rail as it is,_ Bucky thought. 

His stomach chose that moment to growl loudly. 

Shuri raised her eyebrows, and Bucky shrugged. "I fasted with him," he said, not wanting her to worry.

"I might have something to take the edge off," Shuri teased. "I will be back."

She hadn't been gone long when Bucky felt a minor change in pressure against his hand. He glanced over, and saw pale fingers convulse against metal.

Then Loki came awake screaming. He tried to move himself off the table, but was prevented by the fact that their hands were still entwined. When Bucky let go Loki threw himself to the floor, scrambling back on his hands until his back collided with a white wall. 

Bucky crouched down. "Loki, fuck, it's over, Loki - _it's over._ "

Loki was panting like he couldn't get enough air, wide eyes darting all around. "I-I I need...I _need_..."

Bucky got to his feet and braced his prosthetic against one side of the operating table and dug his fingers in, violently breaking it free from the mechanism that kept it hovered above the ground. Then he went and grabbed an armchair sofa from the larger part of the lab for good measure, setting the cushion on the floor and turning it on its side and setting the deactivated table against it to create a small den. 

Loki surged forward and crammed himself inside when he noticed the space. He hunched into a shuddering ball, hands gripped into his hair. 

Bucky raised the noise-cancelling qualities of the earbuds, making it so nothing but the loudest noise would penetrate. Then he sat near the opening, creating another block against the open space.

It didn't take much time for Loki's eyes to droop again. But it was only after he fell back asleep that Bucky's pounding heart could begin to finally settle.

Loki had his voice back. His disease was gone; he was pain-free.

But as Bucky had figured, and Loki's reaction upon waking up had confirmed - that sure as hell didn't mean he was fixed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's now an amazing piece of [art](https://portraitoftheoddity.tumblr.com/post/185958214789/bucky-reached-out-with-the-prosthetic-and-loki) by [Lena7142](https://portraitoftheoddity.tumblr.com/) to go with this chapter!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! As some of you who follow my tumblr might have noted, things haven't been going very well on the physical health front for a bit. (Not going well as in - Loki in this fic kind of has it easy comparatively and I'm jealous haha.) I should be over the biggest hurdle of this latest issue, now, and into a proper recovery phase. But that's why this chapter is a bit later than usual. I'm hoping the quality doesn't suffer overmuch from the sickness during its progress. Because I still have a couple things to write for the next chapter, let's go ahead and say that one will be posted **Monday, February 4th,** instead of the usual Saturday.
> 
> In the meantime, uh, this part is also almost 7,000 words. I got carried away and then didn't want to break it up. Sorry?
> 
> Anyhow, here's the next chapter...and the first one of this fic featuring a fully verbal Loki! Enjoy.

Shuri found them like that when she returned with her arms full of food cartons. "What are you doing?"

Bucky spared a guilty glance towards the destroyed lab equipment and upended sofa. "This probably looks bad."

"No shit, genius." She gaped. "I was gone for two seconds. Did you _break_ my operating table?"

"Loki was panicking," Bucky said. "I didn't know what else to do."

The anger drained from Shuri's expression. She came forward, leaning over to catch sight of where Loki was sleeping in his makeshift den. "He can stay there while he recovers," she said, then pointed at Bucky in renewed outrage. "Do _not_ touch anything else in my lab. I made that arm for precision workings and defense - _not_ so you could use it to demolish my furniture." 

"Sorry," Bucky said, chastened. 

She shoved a container into his hands. "Apologize by eating." 

"Is there room for another?"

At the voice, Shuri jumped in surprise and Bucky froze. King T'Challa stepped into sight, hands behind his back and dressed in a well-tailored tailcoat.

"I did not invite you to this picnic," Shuri said. "Between the two of you there will not be any food left in Wakanda."

T'Challa's eyes moved to Bucky, obviously waiting for his opinion. Bucky offered a small smile through his vestigial nervousness. "I don't mind sharing."

"You see?" Shuri said, as if that proved her point. 

T'Challa frowned in concern as he noticed the sofa and the broken stretcher. "What happened here?"

"Bucky's practicing for a play he is writing where he will star as King Kong," Shuri said, setting out the rest of the food.

Bucky shot her an exasperated look; she'd asked him, one afternoon, to tell her about the movies he'd seen growing up. She'd clearly used that particular example to make sure he would understand exactly how he was being teased.

T'Challa raised his eyebrows. "And you let him stay? The last time you thought I had broken something you barred me from your lab for four days."

"You did break something," Shuri corrected. "And I was too worried he would make me his Ann Darrow to try to throw him out."

Bucky sighed. "Loki had a panic attack. He has a problem with open spaces. I just grabbed whatever was closest."

Shuri harrumphed. 

_Yeah, okay,_ Bucky thought, _so maybe I never wanted to see that goddamn thing working ever again._

Luckily, she let it go, especially when T'Challa settled cross-legged beside her and took up the mantle as being the source of her irritated judgment. Shuri's tiredness had sharpened her edges, but as she bickered with her brother on and off for long moments, a tension in the air began to loosen. Bucky was happy to sit and listen to their exchanges in silence, offering noncommital shrugs when they asked for his opinion.

He kept half an eye on Loki, who twitched in his sleep but remained unaware. Bucky used the frequent monitoring as an excuse to hold back on eating, only polishing the rest of the food off after Shuri had eaten her fill.

When the food was gone, T'Challa turned solemn. "It is good work you have done here today."

"Of course it was," Shuri said, waving a hand in dismissal. "Who do you think you are speaking to?"

"My sister, who never stops surprising me."

Shuri made an exaggerated gagging noise as she got to her feet to clear away the containers. "You make me want to shoot myself with my own blasters."

T'Challa grinned, and persisted as she walked away. "There is no one else I would rather have at my side." 

Shuri raised her middle finger before she rounded the corner.

T'Challa's smile faded, but his expression remained contented as he turned to Bucky. "What is your plan concerning Loki now?" 

_Hell if I know,_ Bucky thought. "Figured I'd ask him. He seems to respond well to that."

"As many people would," T'Challa said, but now there was a pull at his brow and a distant sadness to his eyes. "I am glad you managed to connect with him so well. And that he has been so willing to accept our aid. When I first realized who he was, I had expected his care to involve a higher level of stringent policing." He turned to gaze at the sofa pushed up against the wall. "I do not know whether or not to be pleased that it has not been the case."

"Be pleased," Shuri said, returning to join them in the pillar's recess. "If it had been otherwise, we would not be here now."

Bucky shared her point, even if he felt guilty for it. If Loki hadn't been so beaten down already, if he had required any sort of regular punishment from Bucky to keep him in line, it would have been a quick downward spiral (for both of them). 

And Loki probably would have never willingly agreed to let them do the surgery.

T'Challa sighed. "Two royal members of the Golden Tribe, helping a man from outer space. One who attempted to colonize the colonizers. In all of my training to be king, I did not see this coming."

"You should have," Shuri said. "Vibranium came from space."

"That's not what he meant," Bucky said, his eyes on his metal hand.

"Of course it was not," Shuri responded. "I am not going to pretend like I have been avoiding seeing what Loki has done. Or the fact that he still keeps a great anger within himself." She folded her hands together. "Suffering is suffering. And his condition was my fault to fix." She shrugged. "Besides, if we do not give him the chance to live, then who will?"

Bucky felt a warring tightness of shame and relief. He made a fist with his prosthetic, watched the way the metal reflected the bright lights of Shuri's lab. "What's happening to the men who attacked us?"

"M'Baku is overseeing their questioning," T'Challa said. "He takes defiance against Council decrees very seriously. He has...suggested, to me, that Wakanda should disband the War Dogs. He believes there is no use for them now that we are actively engaging with the rest of the world."

"Suggested," Bucky echoed, full of doubt that was in fact the case.

T'Challa gave a tight smile. "Usually if it is anything else he will not allow me to leave the conversation before he is satisfied I have followed through." 

"My brother is torn because Nakia is a War Dog," Shuri said to Bucky, a teasing edge to her expression. "He would have to put his girlfriend out of work. She would rather throw herself off of Warrior Falls than become his stay-at-home Queen."

"I am not torn," T'Challa argued. "I simply do not wish to punish many based on the actions of a few."

Bucky shrugged. "Seems kind of disadvantageous for Wakanda to give up its spies."

Shuri raised her eyebrows and gestured at his arm. "You have _seen_ my tech, right? Wakanda can more than make do."

"I have decided to wait and see how this plays out," T'Challa said. "For now, I believe that to be the best course of action." His eyes moved to the den that held Loki. "No one outside of Wakanda has ever before managed to obtain and consume the heart-shaped herb. How is he physically?"

"Stable, now that the infection has been removed," Shuri said. 

Bucky glanced at Loki, who was still deep in sleep, the noise-cancelling earbuds blocking their conversation entirely from his hearing. 

T'Challa's voice was soft with thought. "I wonder..."

A look of concern overtook Shuri at her brother's silence. 

Bucky frowned. "What?"

T'Challa exhaled heavily. "Loki was only able to be subdued because the herb has an effect of sedation soon after it is consumed. It is the body's way of coping with the physical transformation. It would seem that at least in that respect, our species do not differ."

"You are wondering if he saw anything," Shuri said. She shook her head. "There would be no way to know. Even if Loki spoke of it...the visions may just be a side effect of the herb."

They were talking about the spirit journey, Bucky realized, and suddenly felt like he was intruding on something he shouldn't. It was a detail of Loki's capture that he hadn't given much thought to.

A hint of frustration entered T'Challa's gaze. "I know what I saw, Shuri."

Her eyes glittered. "I want to believe you, my brother."

T'Challa didn't seem pleased with her answer, but something in him deflated. "What do you know, anyway."

"More than you," Shuri said. She moved to her feet. "Now let's go. I really need a fucking nap. Plus, we are making Bucky uncomfortable."

Bucky felt a swell of embarrassment. God, sometimes he hated that she could read him so well.

T'Challa gave Bucky a nod and stood with her. "You know, you only make people more uncomfortable when you point out such things."

"It's probably why she does it," Bucky said, but he felt a warm glow inside when Shuri grinned in response. 

He hoped she would get some good rest, and that things would be easier for her from now on. She hadn't had the chance to be much of a kid in the last week.

\-----------

T'Challa took his leave with a final goodbye. Shuri left for her nap, leaving instructions that she be called if Loki woke before her or if Bucky felt any lingering urges for "violent caveman interior design."

Bucky was tired, but he was still way too keyed up to even consider sleeping. What he really needed was a long run to clear his head and steady his nerves, and that was obviously not happening any time soon. 

He messed with his Kimoyo Beads, trying to remember any of Shuri's most recent references that he hadn't understood. He searched the Wakandan Database for them in an attempt to keep himself occupied. 

After a while, there was a change in Loki's sleep. He began to sometimes frown and twist, murmuring unintelligibly. Bucky caught a word here and there, but nothing he quite understood. 

Eventually, there was something he did recognize. A name. _Thor_.

His brain jumped first to Hydra intel - a cosmic being of godlike powers, able to control thunder and rain, weapon of choice a hammer that only he could lift. Hydra had given him strict instructions for stealth and avoidance in the event of an encounter, since the arm went dead when it was directly zapped. 

Bucky flexed the fingers of his prosthetic repeatedly, sliding them together, using the signals of the metal brushing against the densely concentrated touch receptors to help him focus his thoughts.

Every official Avenger except for Bruce Banner and Thor had been present at the airport in Germany. Still, Thor had definitely been on Earth within the last five years. He would have been on the ground a few times during Loki's imprisonment in Wakanda. 

Bucky pulled up search after search on his Kimoyo Beads, trying to get a sense of what Thor might be up to, or where he might be. He didn't know where Loki and Thor's relationship currently stood, but the way Loki had said the other Asgardian's name in his sleep...it was like a cry for help.

He lost track of time, mapping locations and keeping track of dates of sightings. Thor had definitely been present during the crisis in Sokovia, but there hadn't been word of him since. And judging by the number of videos and pictures Bucky saw of Thor taking selfies or otherwise interacting with civilians, he wasn't the type to lay low when he was on Earth. 

A sigh sounded next to him. Bucky quickly switched off the Kimoyo Beads, his body twisting in instinctive defense as his gaze went to the makeshift den. Loki was awake, earbuds removed and held loosely in his hands. He had obviously seen what Bucky was watching, but the edges of the resulting suspicious glare were a bit too tired for much bite. 

"Sorry," Bucky said, even as he sent a message to Shuri to let her know Loki was awake.

Loki's throat worked. He didn't mention the video, instead moving his head to cautiously peer out of his shelter. He blanched at the sight of the lab, quickly ducking his head back inside to limit his view. "Why am I still here?" Without the stilted quality to the words or the harsh grating edge, Loki sounded completely different. Still stressed, but a lot less feral. 

Bucky immediately felt terrible for the thought, for equating verbal communication with intelligence. Especially since he was sure that at times some of the greener Hydra members had thought the same thing about him when he spoke.

Most of his handlers, including Pierce, had preferred him quiet.

Loki spoke again, a raw edge creeping into his voice. "Are we not done yet? Is there...is there _more_ -"

"No," Bucky said, cutting him off. "It's done. Everything's out. You're cured."

He could practically see Loki's skin crawling as he pushed back deeper into cover. "Then why stay? Why keep me here? What else does she require of me?"

"Nothing," Bucky said, force coming into his voice, and he carefully quieted it when Loki flinched at the volume. "You can relax."

Loki tensed even further, the whites of his eyes showing. "Do not tell me to relax. Tell me _what you want._ "

"We want the same thing that we have always wanted," Shuri said. She was standing just outside of the alcove with her hands folded in front of her. "To see you better."

Loki couldn't see Shuri from his little hideaway, but the agitation in his face rose nonetheless. "No," he said, the words spilling free like now that he had them he couldn't stop. "You offered this option for a reason. Otherwise why unleash me at all, you could have left me in the ground forever forgotten, you would not have needed to expend _resources_ on this _farce_ of care-"

"Farce?" Shuri's eyes flashed. "Yesterday you thought it beyond my capabilities. We have been telling you the same things for days. You do not listen. Now that you have your voice you use it only to argue and hiss like a wild cat."

"There's no secret agenda," Bucky said, drawing the full defensive ire of Loki's gaze back to him. "She's just a good person. And you must have thought the same thing even a little, or you wouldn't have let her get that shit out of you."

Loki's grip over the earbuds tightened. "And what choice did I have? It was _her_ fault that I was overtaken by the rot-"

"Thought the whole reason you came here was because you were already infected," Bucky said dryly.

Loki's chest heaved. "She bound me without full knowledge of the details. A child playing at godhood. Working with forces she does not understand."

"I made a mistake, yes," Shuri said. "But I admit to it. And I worked to make it better."

Loki glared at the wall of his den as if he could see her through it. "Does that absolve your conscience? A few simple _words_ in exchange for the possibility of _never-ending torment_?"

 _Talking to you is a bit like never-ending torment,_ Bucky thought. 

"This is not the end to our aid," Shuri said. "We still have much ahead of us for your rehabilitation."

"Rehabilitation?" Loki laughed, brief and bitter. "So it is to be slavery, then - a bound god at your beck and call. You would attempt to mold me into something of use, now that you have preserved my body."

Shuri tightened up, the words cutting into her deep. "I am not going to stay and allow this argument to continue. It is easier to deal with internet trolls." She turned to Bucky. "I've changed my mind. Call me when he has actually made a decision on how to proceed."

Loki spoke after her in an accusative tone. "Are you certain you would not like to further cement your benevolence by arranging another chance at cutting me open?"

Bucky couldn't take it anymore. "Okay, shut the hell up with all of that. Here's a question - instead of telling us what we want, why don't you tell us what _you_ want?"

Loki stared at him in fury, nostrils flaring. "This has never been about what I want." He was shooting for vehemence, but the edge of his voice was softened with uncertainty.

 _It was in that cave,_ Bucky thought. _You can't have fucking forgotten that._

"It is now," Bucky said. "You wanna sit here in this hole and argue with us until the end of time? That sound like fun to you?" 

Loki's lips stretched into a nasty smile. "Oh. You are wishing now that I was still buried in that metal coffin."

Bucky felt the plates on his prosthetic shift in quick agitation. "No," he countered, low and angry. "I _really_ fucking don't." The very thought that Loki would even think to accuse him of that was...beyond aggravating. 

Loki had quieted down at the intensity of his voice, the smile gone, his chin dipped as he regarded Bucky in careful wariness. 

Bucky took a deep breath, trying to get the heated edges of his rage to cool. "And anyway, what _I_ want isn't important. This is about you."

"You are completely missing the point," Loki snarled, taking the opening Bucky gave him. "You say I am not listening, but you remain just as dismissive of my words." A faint tremble entered his voice. "What you want is _everything_. It cannot be anything else, not for me. Or did you not realize that particular fact when I abandoned an end in favor of transporting you out of that cave?"

Bucky went still, his heart pumping faster. _He's lying. He's being an asshole on purpose._ "I gave you a choice. You know exactly what that meant. I don't know what the hell you think you're protecting by denying it. Don't pretend to be a dumbass. Or that you didn't deep down have just a tiny bit of hope in your heart that maybe this wasn't the end for you."

"And what hope have I now," Loki asked, some of the fire draining from his posture. "Your lifespans are hardly of a substantial duration. Even if you were to remain as helpful as you claim, those that come after you may not be as forgiving. This is only an extension of a reprieve."

"Well, for one thing, I was born about a hundred years ago," Bucky remarked, and Loki turned to him in sharp surprise. "So who knows when I'll actually die. And for another - how about you see about getting through tomorrow, and the next day, before you shoot that far ahead. No one's putting you back in stasis, not unless you try _really_ hard to fuck things up. Maybe not even then."

"Excepting if I were to attack any dishware, of course," Loki bitterly pointed out, still obviously not trusting anything Bucky said.

"I'll alter the settings," Bucky said, and was rewarded with another bemused stare. "Slow down only in the case of violence. You'll still be able to move if you mess up, just not well. But maybe you can keep a grip on it instead of trying to attack anyone."

Loki didn't respond immediately, the gears in his mind almost visibly cranking away. He spoke carefully. "And if _I_ am attacked?"

Bucky shook his head. "They caught those men that had us. All of the prototype weaponry has been confiscated. Shuri's tech is on total lockdown. Your skin's still as goddamn durable as ever." Bucky swallowed, let the guilt flood him and clench into his stomach. "And I think I already proved what would happen in the case of an attack."

Loki exhaled, breath uneven, eyes darting as he lowered them. He scratched over the metal at his wrist. "If I stay in this place, it will be - difficult, to adhere to your wishes." His eyes tightened and his shoulders hunched up, still digging at the gauntlets with a feverish intensity. "But the previous cell is far too isolated. We would be at risk."

"No one's gonna attack us," Bucky said, even if his paranoid instincts fully agreed with Loki's observation. "The king's sent out a message to Wakanda that no one's allowed to touch you."

Loki gave him a sardonic look, finally letting his hands drop from each other. "I presume this would be the son of the former king, just as the child that was both my jailer and 'savior' is his daughter." His eyes fell shut, something like defeat lining his posture. "I cannot...promise obedience, if I am kept in the open."

Bucky hated the word usage. But Loki was giving him something of an opinion for his wants besides just using his words to claw viciously into everyone around him. "So you don't want to stay here, and you don't want to go back to the lab."

Loki let loose another heavy exhale. 

Bucky gave an ironic smile. "How do you feel about goats?"

\-------------

Getting Loki out of his den and through Shuri's lab was, to put it mildly, slow and difficult. Not the least of which was because, even after what had happened when they'd been kidnapped, even after he'd actively sought out whatever wholly inadequate comfort Bucky could dispense during the horrific surgery, Loki now acted as if there was some sort of secret plan at work that he needed to keep his guard up against.

Based on the few conversations they'd had so far, Bucky wouldn't be surprised if dealing with a fully and comprehensively verbal Loki eventually gave him whiplash. He somehow managed to make Bucky second-guess himself and his motives, which Bucky _really_ didn't like. It felt too much like the echoes of the lies that Hydra told him when they were feeling merciful and trying to get him to bend to their orders with the carrot instead of the stick.

What was more, he didn't know if Loki himself genuinely believed the things he said to Bucky and Shuri, or if the words were just a front. Maybe Loki's brain was just that severely scrambled from all the shit he'd been through. It could have even been a combination of all three of those things. 

Loki's recent actions leading up to now didn't quite line up with the venom he was spitting.

Then again, maybe now that Loki was feeling better physically, they were just seeing the signs that he felt the need to get back to his old, attempted world-conquering ways.

The only thing Bucky knew for sure was that he'd essentially promised Loki that he was in this for the long haul. And he'd meant it.

Bucky guided Loki through his violent flinching away from the view of the windows leading into the open space of the vibranium mine. When he needed to stop, needed to freeze and breathe through his panic, his hands would drift up to the earbuds he'd replaced and he would shut his eyes with a furrowed brow.

Bucky waited close each time, not touching, but near enough that he could move in fast in case Loki lashed out at anything in a panic.

Shuri saw them off at the airship she'd requested for them. Loki didn't look thrilled to see her, but he was clearly expending all of his energy on not freaking out and so only ignored her instead of spewing any vitriol. Bucky wanted to shake him for the continued attitude, but deep down knew that he couldn't blame Loki for remaining spooked around the woman who could and had taken him apart, both mind and body.

Loki hunched quickly into his assigned seat on the airship and kept his eyes shut with his head dipped, hands pressed sharply against each other. Bucky said goodbye to Shuri, and took the tablet she handed him for Loki.

She sent an irritated glare into the airship towards Loki. "I do not think he will need it, but I will be staying in Wakanda for a few more days. Just in case he has any setbacks that require my assistance. Then I will be returning to California for a couple of weeks."

"Good," Bucky said, then as her eyes narrowed at him, he fumbled, "I mean - 'good' that you're going to be helping out and doing what you love, not 'good' because I want you to leave."

"I am teasing you," Shuri said, eyes dancing.

"Had no idea," Bucky deadpanned, then met her halfway when she held out her hands to grasp his. 

"What _you_ are doing is good as well, Bucky," she said, now entirely serious. She squeezed his hands. "Do not forget that."

He squeezed back, feeling that warm glow again. "Thank you."

\----------

They spent the journey to the farm in silence. Loki sat next to him with his shoulders bunched up, his earbuds on to block out most sounds. He would occasionally throw Bucky guarded looks, but any questions or thoughts he had on what was happening he kept to himself. Probably because having an actual conversation would require him to remove his auditory shields.

They were landed as close to Bucky's hut as possible without sending the farm animals into a panic. It would be a short walk.

Bucky got to his feet after he was signaled by the pilot that they had arrived. Loki was clearly aware of the movement, but he didn't look up. He was completely still in his seat, his hands gripping into his legs. Bucky held out his hand - the metal one, and saw eyes flicker up before the pale brow furrowed in consternation.

Bucky sighed, and used his Kimoyo Beads to lower the volume on Loki's earbuds. "We can stay in here as long as you want. Or we can go somewhere else in Wakanda if you've changed your mind. Like I said, it's your choice."

Loki didn't respond verbally - only huffed out a noise of disdain. His gaze darted to the stairs that would lead out of the airship.

Eventually, to Bucky's relief, he cautiously stood, moving with renewed strength and steadiness now that he wasn't holding back an explosion of pure panic from being in Shuri's lab.

"There's a radius on the gauntlets keyed in to the location of my Kimoyo Beads," Bucky warned. "It's gonna be small, just until you settle in. You'll have to let me know if there's somewhere you want to go."

Loki didn't look at him, eyes still glued to the sunlight streaming in through the opening. His hand shook where it was pressed against the wall. "How kind of you to explain my leash."

Bucky sighed. He followed Loki down the stairs, waited patiently for the next flinch and pause at the opening. The tribe had agreed to keep away from Bucky's hut for Loki's arrival, but Bucky knew the kids would be itching to rush over as soon as they could. 

He moved ahead of Loki, ignoring the resulting startled look as he brushed passed and stood outside of the airship. "It's this hut just over here," he said, indicating their destination with a gesture. 

Loki quickly checked their surroundings, then set his jaw and stepped down from the airship onto the grassy hill. Bucky moved in fast steps once he was sure Loki was following, stepping through the cloth that hung down in the door of the hut when they reached it. Loki quickly ducked himself inside behind him. 

The interior of Bucky's hut had been altered, another bed added to accommodate a second person. Bucky tried not to feel closed in as he listened to the airship take off outside.

_Well, here we are._

"That bed's yours," Bucky said as he gestured at the new, red-clad furniture taking up a large chunk of what had already been a meager space. 

Loki stood just inside the doorway, peering around. One of the cows mooed loudly outside and he twitched a shoulder up. 

"This is your home," Loki said, cautious. "You said...goats. I remember...you spoke of it, when I..." He trailed off and swallowed, pushing his fingers against the gauntlets.

 _Home._ Bucky had never acknowledged it as that, not even in his mind, too afraid that he was going to screw up and lose it forever. "Yeah. When we uncovered you."

Loki shuddered. "When I first heard you speaking, I thought - a trick of the mind. But it was too bright. Too loud, for the usual images." 

He wobbled suddenly, his face draining of color. He managed a quick step to the side so he would end up sitting on the bed instead of collapsing on the floor when his legs gave out. Loki raised a hand up, pressing it against his mouth, eyes quickly overwhelmed by a glassy sheen.

Bucky sat down on his own bed, facing him. He laced his hands together while Loki just tried to breathe. "You're not there anymore," Bucky said. "And you're not going back."

Loki laughed behind his palm. A tear slipped free to run down the side of his face. 

Bucky felt a pang in his chest. "If this works for you, we can stay. The kids can be nosy. But I'll make sure to keep them out of the hut."

Loki clenched his jaw, dropping his hand. He took in a stilted breath. "I do not fear children."

Bucky shrugged. "Didn't say you did. They'll be curious, but they won't touch you. They're good kids."

Loki made a low noise of dismissal at Bucky's words, but it was distracted. He still shivered in the aftermath of whatever thoughts had fucked with him.

Bucky kept his voice quiet and calm. "This isn't the city. People in this village live simply. All the hygiene facilities are in one small communal building near the center. If you want to shower or brush your teeth or anything like that, we'd have to head there."

Loki didn't respond, his eyes looking at nothing, growing more dull with exhaustion by the second. Bucky waited with him in silence for a while, giving him time to recover.

When Loki didn't speak up with any questions or statements, Bucky moved to the cloth that covered the hut entrance. "I'm gonna let the tribe know we're here. Anwuli will want to make us dinner."

Loki made a strained noise, hands clenched harshly into his bed. His breaths quickened, but his gaze was stubbornly set away from Bucky. "We've been here a scant hour and you would leave me helpless, trapped, undefended and alone."

Bucky frowned. "The sun's gonna set soon. You have to eat at some point. I won't be gone long. I figured you'd wanna stay here, away from the open space." He paused. "Am I wrong?"

Loki breathed heavily through bared teeth. "Fine," he said. "Go."

Bucky swallowed. He stared at the cloth door, rustling gently with the breeze outside. He could go, could program Loki's gauntlets to keep him confined to the hut, and leave him inside it. Loki would probably fall to pieces while Bucky was gone, but he'd stay put. It wasn't like Bucky would be able to handle tying the two of them that tightly together forever. Loki had to get used to _some_ separation.

Bucky's hand moved to rest against the arch of the door. Loki made a choked off noise of distress.

Bucky hung his head. _Fuck._ He turned around and crossed the short space to his bed, and took a seat before activating his communication bead. Anwuli popped up, her expression delighted. "How are you settling back in?"

"We're keeping to the hut for the evening," Bucky explained. 

She nodded her understanding. "Shuri told me that would likely be the case. I will bring food. Something simple, to help with his healing gut."

Bucky didn't bother to mention that Loki's enhancements meant he was already entirely physically healed from the surgery. 

Loki was watching him with a keen eye, his long limbs still tense. Bucky looked back after he hung up. "Guess I'm staying in for the night."

\-----------

Anwuli showed up about an hour later, sending a message to Bucky's beads to alert him of her arrival. Bucky mentioned to Loki that he might want to replace the noise-cancelling earbuds while Bucky talked to her, just in case she happened to raise her voice at any point during their conversation. Loki had only glared, and then argued with Bucky for a minute about whether or not Bucky would use the opportunity of his deafness to leave him in stealth. Loki had eventually subsided at Bucky's constant negating of his spoken suspicions, but he hadn't been happy about it.

Bucky met Anwuli outside of the hut, making sure to close the cloth behind himself. In the distance, Bucky could see a group of kids not doing a very good job at keeping their painted faces hidden behind an outcropping of trees.

Anwuli's eyes widened when she saw his new prosthetic. "You did not tell me the princess had designed you a new arm! May I see it?"

Bucky held it out for her inspection, wishing strongly that the urge to get back inside the hut to Loki wasn't combating so hard against his relief to be in the open air.

She gasped as she took in the details, the bright gold shimmering between the darker plates. He obligingly flexed his hand, making them shift, smooth as sliding liquid. "It's gorgeous." She grinned up at him. "And it suits you."

Bucky ducked his head, feeling a little out of sorts at the compliment and trying to hide it. "You won't have to help me get dressed anymore," he said.

"That was not a hardship," Anwuli insisted. "You needed time."

 _What I really needed apparently was to get kidnapped and attempt to murder every one of the men that had me,_ Bucky thought. "I should get back inside," he said. "He...Loki has a hard time with being alone."

Anwuli nodded. "I am glad you are back," she said. "Maybe soon we can take a walk together." 

When Bucky re-entered the hut, he paused at the entrance. His eyes instantly went over his meager possessions, noting that something was off. He turned to Loki, who stared back, looking spooked and more than a little guilty.

"What did you take," Bucky asked, though he was fairly certain he already knew.

Loki didn't respond, but there was a telling tightness to his shoulders, as if he was anticipating punishment. Bucky sighed, and set the food on the floor of the hut.

"I'm not gonna yell at you for taking a weapon," Bucky said. "Especially considering how pointless it is compared to your physical strength. Besides, you're trying not to give me reasons to put you back in stasis, remember?"

Loki went pale at the mention of stasis. He shivered. "The weapon is not for you," he said, as if that made a difference.

Bucky turned on him sharply, getting a bit too angry to really care about the flinch that came in response. "I'm not letting you try to stab anyone in this village."

Loki glared up at him, the fear curdling his anger. "You brought me here. I am _surrounded_ by enemies-"

"You're surrounded by men and women and children who want to live in peace," Bucky snapped, and Loki flinched again. "One of them just made you dinner. Unless the Dora show up, no one here but me has any sort of combat training beyond basic skill. So, I'll ask, what the fuck do you think a knife is going to add to your defense?"

Loki's nostrils flared, his jaw set tight. "You said you would not yell."

Bucky didn't back down. "At you for taking a weapon, yeah. Didn't say shit about not yelling at you for talking about using it on innocent people." He pointed to Loki's hands. "And in case you forgot, the Gauntlet Stabilizers will trigger if your brain sends any signals for explosive violence. You're two for four on the dumb versus smart choices right now. Doing something as obvious and stupid as using a weapon to hurt someone would tip the scales right back." 

"Four," Loki echoed. "You have added two since the last time." He sounded a little surprised.

"You made some good decisions," Bucky said, his anger still coloring his tone.

Loki's lips twisted in bitterness. "Because I saved you, you mean."

"No," Bucky said. "Because you saved your own goddamn self."

Loki stared at him, gaze unreadable. Then he reached beneath his mattress, pulling free the knife. He stared at it for a moment, his eyes darting to the cloth curtain of the hut. His grip on it tightened.

He held it out to Bucky, keeping his gaze averted. When Bucky didn't move, Loki moved his hand forward in impatience. "Well?"

"I didn't say you had to give it back," Bucky said.

Loki dropped his arm and pressed a hand into his forehead. He spoke through gritted teeth. "You are maddening."

"Thanks for inviting me to the club," Bucky said. "Let's keep it simple - if you want the knife, you can keep it. But if I think you're gonna do something dangerous with it, I'll stop you." 

"Will you," Loki said, eyes shrewd.

"Dangerous towards civilians," Bucky amended. 

Loki's shoulders slumped. He took in a deep sigh, setting the knife aside. "It is...courageous, for them to allow such a threat to reside in the midst of non-combative innocents." The way he said the word "courageous" made Bucky think he really meant "stupid."

Bucky settled onto his bed now that Loki had signaled that the worst of the argument was over. He put on a tone of deliberate obtuseness. "Threat. You talking about me or you?"

Loki's eyes went to the metal arm. His expression changed, filled with a mindful curiosity. He didn't say anything else, and the quiet scrutiny almost made Bucky's hackles rise more than the demonstrative anger.

But at least Loki had stopped speaking hostilely about the Wakandans.

\----------

Bucky's fatigue finally started to get the better of him a few hours after night fell. He got ready to turn in, changing his clothes into something lighter, keeping his arm entirely uncovered. Loki watched him, Shuri's tablet untouched at his side on the bed. The knife was gone, hidden again at some point. It really didn't make Bucky feel any more defensive than he already did in Loki's presence. And anyway, it wasn't like there were a lot of options for places Loki could have stowed it.

"Radius on the gauntlets is just a few feet larger than the hut perimeter," Bucky said. "That's enough if you need some air. Like I said earlier, you'll have to let me know if you want anything more than that. We can leave early in the morning if you don't want to run into anyone on the way to the showers."

Loki didn't respond. His eyes had drifted to the hut door.

"I'm going to bed," Bucky said, probably unnecessarily, but he was going to try and keep things with Loki as transparent as possible. It obviously wouldn't stop every miscommunication, but maybe it would help.

He hoped. 

Loki didn't move at all from his position before Bucky fell asleep. But when Bucky woke in the middle of the night, he saw Loki had positioned himself on his knees, curled upright on his mattress. His shoulder was propped against the hut wall. He wasn't asleep, his eyes open and detached, glittering in the dark as they stared into the middle distance. The earbuds were in place and glowing bright, their light reflecting off of the wet track that lined his cheek.

They were miles away from that damn box, but Loki was still mentally trapped in it.

Bucky felt the pang in his chest return. The feeling followed him when he went back under, and haunted his dreams.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Physical health is on the mend! But...I live in a sitcom, and my laptop is now broken. All further updates for this fic for the near future will have to be written/edited on my phone, which is totally doable (most of my first fic was written that way), but a bit slower. So, that being said, next week's update will be skipped so I can be sure I have time to regain my lead in pre-written chapters on the less than ideal writing device haha. Next chapter will be up **Saturday, February 16th. ******
> 
> In the meantime, this chapter is over 6,700 words of Bucky and Loki interactions, so hopefully that will tide everyone over. ;)

Bucky woke before dawn, his mind feeling rough right off the bat. He stared at the hut ceiling for a long moment, trying to let the gentle pulse of the chorus of nocturnal insects and chirping nightjars soothe him with its familiarity. 

Every ache in his body from the events of the last two days was healed. His spine still felt like someone had it gripped in their fist, but when he pulled himself out of bed to sort through his small pile of owned clothes he could tell even that seemed better now that Shuri's arm had evened him out.

Loki was awake, in the same spot on his bed, in the same position on his knees. His head was dipped forward, black hair curling at his shoulders. Eyes reflecting the glow from the earbuds slanted over to Bucky when he approached. Loki's face was dry, but the rims of his eyelids were red and his expression was lethargic. Slender fingers curled, a sigh expanding through his thin chest as Bucky took over the auditory controls on his earbud shields to lower them.

Bucky kept his voice soft. "Loki, you wanna head to the bathrooms?"

A swallow bobbed in Loki's throat. His gaze drifted charily to the cloth that hung down in the door, lit with the cool glow of moonlight. Clearly not overly eager about crossing that barrier.

"It's not an order," Bucky said, when he thought of it. "You don't have to go." 

Loki's lips tightened in a distant, tired cousin of irritation. He turned his gaze back down to his bed, a brief shudder coursing his frame. "But if I do not join you, you will leave me here. Alone and confined."

"Yeah," Bucky answered, that pang in his chest still going strong. "I don't want to, but I have to piss and bathe at some point. I wouldn't be long." Even as he said that, Bucky felt his restless limbs lock up in protest at the thought of just jamming himself back into this small hut when normally about now he would be starting to ready himself for work. Or preparing to make the journey to Mount Bashenga to see Shuri.

Loki didn't answer immediately, hesitant as he tried to decide which of his personal horrors would be the worst to endure. He looked wrung out, the curve of his ribs obvious beneath his tunic and not for the first time Bucky wondered if they really needed to up his food intake. 

The thought was disengaged into something more cautious as limbs unfolded and Loki slipped from the bed, rising to his full height. Bucky would have winced at the way he barely seemed to fit in the hut if he didn't know by now that Loki preferred things that way.

Loki had pulled his earbuds free and held them loosely in his hand. He stared at Bucky, expression mostly blank, but irritation-clouded nervousness lurked in his eyes.

Bucky nodded at him in encouragement. "Radius on the gauntlets is-"

"I do not care about your radius," Loki hissed, with an intensity to his tone that made Bucky think he meant anything but. He schooled himself with effort, eyes flicking away. "I will...remain at your side, Wolf."

"Okay," Bucky said, and Loki's face darkened further for a brief second. 

Loki kept himself next to Bucky, as he said he would. He seemed to have no trouble navigating in the dark, even if he was clearly torn about where to best direct his eyes to scan for threats. 

Out in the calm of the night, Bucky quickly noted that Loki's footfalls were soft in a practiced way, the weight distribution of each step carefully deliberate. His breaths had gone quiet, in spite of his clear fear. Bucky thought again about how much Loki could move like a predator, qualities that Hydra had prized and encouraged in training their Winter Soldiers.

Loki had been showy during his attack on earth, all bright golden gleaming armor, pulling attention even in the midst of huge swaths his alien army. He'd been intentionally drawing in a fight.

This behavior...this was the direct opposite of that. Loki could avoid notice, was excellent at the physical control required, even took into account the change in terrain as they went from grass to the cover of trees where the broken branches and fallen leaves littering the ground added an additional obstacle to complete silence. And all of that was only considering what he had to work with now that his power was locked away.

Which just put the events that lead him to being captured in Wakanda in more of a stark light - how impeded he'd been by his injuries and the herb dragging him down as it changed his body.

They reached the bathrooms without interception. Much of the exterior and interior were crafted traditionally, the walls and roof made of mud and grass, with the exception of the sinks and pipes and tile around the bathing areas. There were a couple of hand showers set in the wall in a sectioned-off room, but mostly the tribespeople preferred to use the area of the building that contained baths and buckets.

Bucky contemplating moving around the building in complete darkness before ultimately deciding to trigger the lights at a low brightness. "I'm gonna shower over there," he said, gesturing to a neighboring room. "Do whatever makes you comfortable."

What made Loki comfortable, apparently, was following Bucky and staring openly as he set his fresh change of clothes to the side and gathered bathing supplies. 

Bucky paused when he noticed that Loki was definitely not going to look away. Something in his chest went tight with resignation. He still had some residual issues with having people in close proximity when he (did anything) bathed - but he'd been dealing with sleeping near Loki, and he tried to tell himself that this wasn't any more vulnerable than that.

He pretended to ignore Loki's gaze as he removed his clothes and stepped under the spray of one of the showers, instinctively keeping his left side outwards, even if it gave Loki a complete eyeful of the scarring from Hydra's hack job. Loki took up a spot standing with his back to the wall where he could easily keep both Bucky and any possible intruders in his sight. 

"You did not have that arm until recently," Loki said, his voice unsure. Like he was wondering if his brain just hadn't seen it until now. 

_Oh, good,_ Bucky thought as he scrubbed roughly at his scalp. _Just the subject I wanted to touch on now._ "No," Bucky said. 

"I presume the girl was the architect for its design."

Bucky felt a small bloom of irritation at Loki's tone, suddenly wondering if he was going to have to deeply revise his expectations on just how easy this was going to be. _You wanted him here, Barnes. Now deal with him._ He studiously kept washing, avoiding eye contact. "Her name's Shuri." He couldn't quite keep the bite out of his voice.

Loki gave a short contemptuous laugh that made Bucky grind his teeth. "You are still displeased with my acrimony towards her. Yet you do nothing to stop it."

"I think I'm making it pretty clear that I'm _asking_ you to stop it."

"Do you truly believe that a few simple words would be enough to sway me?" Loki sounded closer, and Bucky glanced at him in alarm to see he'd come forward from the wall, all towering intimidation. Bucky forced himself to calm, noting that Loki was still standing outside of the shower's spray. 

_It's just more posturing,_ Bucky thought. _He can't do anything else._ "They're the only thing I've used on you so far," he pointedly reminded. 

"Then perhaps you should reconsider your methods." Loki's voice was goading, and hell if it didn't put Bucky right back on edge. "That is, after all, why she gifted you that limb, is it not?"

Bucky froze. "What?"

"You think I cannot see?" And Bucky wasn't making eye contact, but he could _see_ the stretch of white teeth that appeared in his periphery in the dim light. That damn smile. "You have been given a true taste of the power I wield, so you have made it certain that you are better equipped. You possess strength and skill, and the body and bearing of a practiced warrior. And now you have granted yourself a weapon of caliber to help you contain the monster in the midst of these innocents you so cherish."

"I..." Bucky trailed off and exhaled, his mind reeling. Jesus, he'd thought _he_ was paranoid. 

Loki went on in the wake of Bucky's silence. "Did she happen to integrate into it her technology for damaging my flesh? It would seem a heavy oversight if not."

Casual. Like he was talking about the damn weather.

"I didn't ask," Bucky snapped, balancing himself out again with renewed anger. Something was off. He stopped bathing himself completely, turning and letting the water pelt his back as he stared at Loki. "What the hell are you doing?"

Loki's gaze was narrowed, lean body overtaken by a careful stillness. Bucky didn't miss the way his hands had settled into curved shapes at his sides. "I would have thought the questions were simple."

"If there's anything I'm learning it's that coming from you, they're definitely not." There would be layer upon layer of meaning, and Loki kept acting like Bucky knew the score when all that he was really doing was trying to unravel the real message behind the words like one of the damn puzzle games he played. 

"Yet you dance around the subject rather than answer," Loki accused. 

" _I'm_ trying to take a goddamn shower. I wasn't expecting to need to jump through fifty mental hoops. Just give me a fucking second." Bucky exhaled, wracking his brain over Loki's words. "Yesterday you were saying what I wanted was everything, and now you're..." He looked up, took in the lines of Loki's shoulders, the tenseness, the expectation. Something clicked into place. "Are you _trying_ to get me to fight you?"

Loki didn't answer, his posture changing minutely, ready to withdraw. Like now that Bucky hadn't just fallen for getting badgered into getting more pissed off, he was having second thoughts.

"That's what it is," Bucky said, a bit more certain. "Why the _fuck_ -"

"You refuse to tell me what is coming," Loki blurted, desperate, eyes growing watery as the outer layer of his composure finally crumbled like glass. He kept his rage in bared teeth. "You all do. _You_ say there is no secret agenda, and in the same breath you adorn yourself with a weapon that even now you keep poised in my direction."

Bucky looked down. The prosthetic was tightened up, the fingers clenching into a fist in his frustration.

_"This is only an extension of a reprieve."_

Back in that underground lab in the middle of nowhere, when Bucky had been trying to get Loki's story out of him, he'd said King T'Chaka had promised to help him. Instead, he'd tried to kill Loki. And when he couldn't manage that, he'd bound him - covered him in vibranium nanites and buried him in the ground, in a cocoon of a prison so hellish that even now the mere brush of a thought over the fact made Bucky's heart pound faster.

Bucky imagined Loki, awake all night in the quiet of the hut, his mind tearing itself to shreds with dreaded possibilities in the dark. A prisoner who'd suffered unendingly for years, waiting for the other shoe to drop now that he'd finally been given a break. 

Bucky remembered that, the way the waiting was sometimes worse. The anticipation of horrors creeping in through the vulnerability caused by solitude, by being penned in. Helpless.

He forced his hand to loosen. "God, I - that's not why I asked for the arm. I didn't even _want_ the damn thing before now." 

Loki kept his guard up, his voice low and trembling. "Then why?"

Bucky pushed back the wet hair that was sticking to his forehead. "I asked for it because I thought maybe it'd help to hurt you _less._ "

"Less," Loki repeated, dubious. "Do you truly think me so blind? I saw you reach for the metal when you spoke to me of your past killings - your _burden_ that brought you to your new sanctuary for healing."

"I think your fucking problem is you see way too much," Bucky said, anger rising alongside his guilt as Loki's words and tone willfully raked over that sore spot. "So much that you see shit that isn't even there. We've been together for days - all the stuff that's happened...why would I wait to hurt you, kill you until now?" Bucky could feel the shame building like a maelstrom. "Why are _you_ telling me that's what this is?"

Loki snarled, regaining intensity. "I do not know why you continue this charade. If the limb was so harmless you would have not been able to destroy so easily the table that bound me. Why else would you wish for a weaponized arm at this point in time? What _possible_ reason would you have other than-"

"So I could be better at protecting _you!_ "

Finally, that shut Loki up. He flinched and backed up a hasty step, eyes wide. The building went silent except for the sound of water slapping against tile and Bucky's skin.

Bucky swallowed against the tingling in his throat from the aftereffects of his shout. The guilt in his stomach swirled like a snake swallowing its own tail, making him feel like he was dirty all over again.

His voice felt raw when he spoke, thrumming with the undercurrent of a plea. "We're gonna wake up the entire fucking village if we keep at it. Just - god, give me a break from this. If you need the shower, the baths, anything, do it. Give me a few minutes in peace to finish up here. Then after that...we'll do whatever you want. Untangle this fucking mess." _Or tangle it up even more,_ he thought.

Bucky went back to his shower, deliberately turning his back so he wouldn't have to see Loki's face. There was silence for several seconds, broken by a noise of derision. It was soft, like Loki hadn't meant for Bucky to hear it, but it made Bucky tense all the same.

_Just fucking finish your shower. Keep to a schedule._ He felt like his skin was too tight, his brain oversensitized. If Loki spoke to him one more time in the next few minutes, demanded answers again, flayed open Bucky's motives and intentions - he wouldn't answer verbally. He'd just run out the goddamn door. And keep running.

_No, you won't,_ his thoughts insisted. That wasn't an option. This was the choice he'd made. He hadn't opted out when it was first presented to him - and no matter how appealing the thought was, had been from the moment he'd fallen down that damn hole, he wasn't backing out now. 

And he sure as fuck wasn't letting _Loki_ succeed in scaring him off.

\----------

Thankfully, after that, the air descended into - not peace, but certainly quiet. Bucky finished up his own hygienic routine, dressed, and didn't check if the reason Loki wasn't talking was because he was working on his own. Not until he was done, and saw that Loki had slipped out of the shower room. He found him waiting a short distance away from the building's exit. It looked like he'd decided to pass on the baths.

"You ready to go," Bucky asked, voice still a little cool despite himself.

Loki's eyes tightened at the edges. He nodded.

Hues of blue were beginning to soften the black of the sky. Bucky half expected some of the villagers to be standing around outside, wondering what the fuck that racket had been happening inside. But everyone still appeared to be asleep, for which he was immensely grateful.

Loki's movements on the way back were a lot less tense than they had been heading out. He moved several paces ahead of Bucky when they neared the hut, quickly stepping through the cloth. 

Bucky stayed outside for a minute, staring at the horizon over the river, feeling the chill from the night air as it brushed across his damp hair. One of the goats watched him from inside the pen just down the hill. It was the black and white doe, pressed against the bars of her enclosure. She stared across at him in the dark.

Bucky sighed, and ducked into the hut.

Loki sat on his bed, feet on the floor. He hadn't replaced the earbuds. His eyes flicked up to Bucky, then back down.

Bucky sat down on his own bed, gearing himself up for part two, and hoping to hell it went better than the last one. "Okay, so that could have gone better," he said, keeping his lingering agitation out of his voice. 

Loki didn't look up again, but Bucky saw the way his fingers brushed repeatedly over the palm of his opposite hand in anxious movement. _Yesterday he was laid out on a slab being cut apart by half a dozen scientists at once,_ Bucky thought. _And before that wasn't much fucking better. He needs a break just as much as you do._

If only there was a way to give it to him.

Loki apparently wasn't going to answer, so Bucky pulled himself together. "I'm not...I'm trying to do right by you," he said. "I'm sorry that I fucked up and lost my temper. I know things are tough, and you still don't think you can trust me. That wouldn't have helped."

Loki's movements slowed as Bucky spoke, his expression going flat. He shut his eyes, that familiar wrinkle springing up at his brow.

Bucky couldn't read him, but he didn't want to leave it there. "Everyone says I was charming when I was younger. A real sweet-talker. But all of that padding, that cotton-candy bullshit, I can't do it anymore." He tapped on the side of his head. "I'm surprised I can keep on at all with how many times this thing has been fried. I just get tired, now. So if I bail out verbally on something for a minute, it's not really your fault. Although at this point I don't think me saying that is going to be much help."

Loki finally looked up at him, his voice dull. "How are you not certain I will simply use this information against you?"

As if it was an inevitability, something that Loki couldn't fight against. "I'm not. But I wasn't saying it for my sake." Bucky shrugged. "Don't want you to take it personally."

Loki paused, a bit of the spark returning to his eyes, his brow furrowed like he was puzzling something out. "You are...concerned, for my feelings."

"Fucking _yes_. How many times do I have to goddamn say it?" 

"Why," Loki asked, and there again was the desperation, like Bucky had just put a gun to his head instead of giving him an overture of goodwill.

Bucky tried to think of an answer that wouldn't set Loki off more, but he was beginning to think that the truth of it was that there wasn't one. "I don't know."

Loki sneered. "So you are a fool, then. I might have known."

"Maybe. Doesn't fucking change it." Bucky met Loki's gaze in challenge. "Gonna use that against me, too?"

Loki stared back, silent, his face twisting through expressions like he couldn't decide which emotion to land on. His hands rubbed harder into each other. "But I was correct in that you did use such an arm to kill."

Bucky pressed his lips together. "Yeah," he reluctantly said. "And then I stopped."

Loki's smile was bitter. "You speak of it as if it was an easy enough task to cast off the behavior."

"It's not. It wasn't. And it almost killed me fifty times over."

Something attentive appeared in Loki's eyes, like a hound zeroing in on injured prey. "And yet here you are. What was the change?"

Bucky looked down. "Someone was there to pull me out."

"The girl?"

"Her name's _Shuri_. And...no. Yes." Bucky frowned, and realized that his anger was beginning to build again. He had to stop this subject from continuing or he'd just end up yelling again. "Look, I don't really wanna talk about this."

Loki raised his eyebrows with a ghost of a smirk. He spread his hands. "But you would delve thoroughly into my history without so much as a word of permission. Despite your supposed 'concern' for my feelings."

"I won't do it anymore," Bucky said, suddenly feeling more than drained. "You're right - it wasn't right. I'll stop."

Loki paused, his brow creasing momentarily before he smoothed it out again. "So generous," he murmured, closed off. He glanced around, then sought out the tablet that Shuri had given him and turned it on. He pointedly reapplied his earbuds and activated them. "I see you are growing tired of me. You may, as you so kindly put it, continue to 'bail out verbally.'" 

Bucky sighed. "Using it against me it is," he muttered, but of course Loki couldn't hear him. The words and the way Loki acted, like he was just shrugging everything off, sent off about two dozen alarm bells in Bucky's head. But he didn't try to draw Loki back into conversation, because Loki was right. At least right now, he didn't want to deal with stepping into what would probably end up being another series of minefields he didn't know how to avoid. And especially not now that Loki had been actively wanting to prod into the subject of Bucky's time as a Winter Soldier.

He turned on his Kimoyo Beads, and spent the next few hours trying to pretend he didn't feel awkward as hell while Loki studiously ignored him.

\----------

Anwuli brought them breakfast, and then lunch. Bucky kept things brief, apologetic, and each time she only smiled and told him she would return later with more food. He was really going to have to at least try to make things up to her even a little bit, as soon as he could. He knew she would just brush off his concern if he mentioned it, that she genuinely liked to give openly and wouldn't have any complaints, but it didn't stop Bucky's mind from making him feel like crap for what he felt was just becoming endless rudeness.

Loki seemed to be playing the long game with ignoring Bucky, but he consumed what was put within his reach, and pretended he didn't see the couple of times Bucky tried to get his attention for a few words. It wasn't really a pressing issue, except for the fact that Bucky was increasingly beginning to feel like the hut was closing him in.

It was still better than the underground lab. At least out here he could breathe, had sounds of actual life to ground him. 

He could hear the kids running around outside, and once he saw shadows on the other side of the cloth door, before someone called out in Xhosa to get them away. Loki had grown markedly tense during that time, but made no comment on their proximity.

Bucky tried to loosen up his brain a bit by doing push ups in the limited floor space, keeping the metal arm behind his back. Sometimes he felt a tingling, like he was being watched, but each time he checked Loki was still looking at his tablet. 

Maybe he was just going a little stir-crazy. 

But after about the fifth time he felt the tingling, it was followed by a voice. "May I inspect it?"

Bucky paused, shaking the hair out of his face before he peered up. "What?"

Loki was leaning forward on his bed, tablet set to the side. His eyes were curious. "The device you wield for my... _protection._ "

Bucky ground his teeth. "Not if you're gonna say it like that. Anyway, thought you were giving me the silent treatment."

Loki swallowed with a flicker of ire, and looked like he was going to start shit again for a half a second before the fire died. He sat back. "My apologies."

Loki couldn't have surprised him more if he'd started singing Sinatra. Bucky waited, watching the way Loki kept his eyes suddenly directed at the wall. Already wondering just how damn much he was going to regret this, Bucky sighed, and moved to his feet, holding the prosthetic out to Loki, lax and palm up. 

Loki turned his eyes back. He hesitantly reached out, and Bucky kept himself stock still, even as the sensors in the arm sent signals of sensation when hands grasped along the wrist and forearm. Loki felt along the grooves, intent, watching closely when Bucky couldn't help but curl his fingers inward as Loki ran his hand over the metal wrist. 

"It is not only to assist your movements," Loki murmured. "It reacts in the way a living limb would." He tapped his fingers very lightly against the prosthetic's palm. "You can feel this."

Bucky exhaled. "Yeah. Sensors jammed into my central nervous system." 

"But it is many times the strength of your flesh arm." Loki splayed his hand over the forearm, palm flat against the metal. He didn't hold it there for long, drawing away. The side of his mouth quirked up. "It does hold the technology to harm me."

Bucky felt a thrill of unease. "How do you know that?"

"My magic is warning me of its presence."

"Thought your magic was contained."

"Yes. In _me_." Loki held his hand up, displaying the cuff and rings that bound it. "The restraints do not prevent me from accessing my senses, and right now they are telling me that your limb holds the same energy that was used to... _excavate_ my body so thoroughly."

Bucky swallowed, feeling ill. "Shuri didn't tell me."

"You did not ask, I presume," Loki said, releasing him. "It is good. She rendered you capable of, heh, single- _handedly_ putting down the danger you have chosen to contain."

Bucky eyed his new arm, working his brain, trying to see if he could feel anything like what Loki had described. He still hadn't attempted to test its full capabilities. 

And Loki didn't seem spooked by it. On the contrary, he looked downright contented. "You like that I have it," Bucky said, confused.

Loki grinned, like he was revelling in Bucky's discomfort. "It soothes to know there is an alternative option of punishment they are considering employing."

"I - _no_ , goddamn it." Bucky turned around and stomped the two steps away from Loki that he could manage. He tried to get his breathing under control. (" _Soldat._ ")

He whirled back around, and if he was a little too pissed off in that moment, well - screw it. "Listen close, because this is the last time I am going to fucking say it. _I'm not hurting you._ If I need to stop you from attacking anyone, I'll do it, and I'll do my damn job well - but beating the shit out of you for punishment, or putting you back into stasis - those aren't on the table."

Loki's face had gone blank. "You cannot predict what the future holds."

"No, but the whole point of coming here was so that for the first time in my fucking life I could have some _control_ in what my future holds," Bucky said. 

"Can you?" Loki bristled, his face full of doubt. "Did you wake up one morning and wish to find a god in the ground? One that you would eventually have to look after as thoroughly as you would an ailing pet?" He shook his head. "There is no control, Wolf. Not for you or for me. Not now that you have taken this duty. We are trapped in the cycle of restitution fate has seen fit to deal us, and we will suffer for it."

Bucky, against everything, suddenly felt his humor rise. "You think getting stuck hanging out with you is that bad, huh?"

That threw Loki off balance. He stared at Bucky, suspicious. "I do not expect you are enjoying it."

"You're an asshole, that's for sure." Bucky shrugged. "I've had worse. Seventy years worth of bastards worse."

"Perhaps I should rise to that challenge," Loki said, a wild light seeping into his gaze. "You think if I was free that I would not know exactly how to ruin you, make you beg? At full strength I could make your deepest nightmares seem as soft and pleasing as a down feather."

The words didn't make Bucky feel any anger or nervousness. He'd already _known_ all of that shit about Loki. That it was being said out loud, like Loki was proving a point, was just highlighting the fact that this whole thing was some sort of defensive lashing out. It had been happening with every conversation they'd had since Loki had woken up from the surgery. 

Bucky knew he had the power to stop it, could yell at Loki or order him into silence.

He didn't. 

"Yeah, whatever," he said, and watched as Loki seized up at his calm tone. Bucky's brain was apparently done feeling threatened by this kind of behavior. "Go ahead and try your best to self-destruct. But you must have thought this was worth enough to keep going."

"Must I have?" Loki was staring at him unblinkingly, that expressionless look coming up again. 

Bucky waved him off, heading back to his bed. He switched on his Kimoyo Beads. "Keep denying it. I don't really care at this point."

That, evidently, had been the _really_ wrong thing to say.

Loki pulled free the knife and came for his throat. 

Bucky raised his arm and deflected the weapon, sending it sailing to pierce into the hut wall. In the same movement he clamped his hand around Loki's wrist to hold him still. He had to try with effort to derail the follow-up moves his instincts screamed at him to perform, to grip and slam the lean body down, to incapacitate Loki completely.

Because there wasn't a follow-up attack, and there wasn't going to be one; Loki stood in front of him, breathing hard, eyes wide and hunted. Bucky could feel him shake under his grip. When he let go, Loki stumbled back, his legs colliding with his bed before he held himself straight.

He was still moving normally. No slow down.

"What the hell was that," Bucky asked, indicating the knife, hiding how much his own heart was pounding. 

Loki flinched. He didn't answer. 

Bucky felt his anger spark back into life at the silence, but it wasn't because he felt like _he_ was in danger. If he'd even had an ounce less of self control, of awareness...

But that was what Loki wanted, wasn't it?

_What the hell is your goddamn problem, pal,_ he wanted to shout. _Why do you keep doing this reckless shit?_

Bucky couldn't keep the glower from seeping onto his face. "The gauntlets didn't activate, which means your brain didn't send any signals for an actual attack. You meant to let me stop you. What nerve did I hit this time?"

Loki tightened up, turning his face away, on the verge of hyperventilation.

"If you don't tell me, I'll probably just accidentally piss you off again." Bucky finally got himself under control in the aftermath of the adrenaline. He forcibly relaxed his posture, hoping some of the energy would bleed into Loki.

It didn't. If anything, Loki looked more panicked. "Stop this," he gasped. He looked like he wanted to run, like Bucky was hurting him just by speaking - like Bucky had felt just that morning. "Do not..."

"Don't what?" Bucky asked, unable to keep some of the strain from his voice. "You're the one who came at _me_."

Loki made a choked noise and gripped his hands into his hair, shaking his head. He backed away and collapsed down, looking shaky and tired, staring at nothing, breathing like he'd sprinted across the entirety of Wakanda to reach this point.

Then his eyes darted to the hut door, arms lowering defensively as his torso straightened up. There were shadows, small forms clustered on the other side of the cloth. Bucky could hear them whispering low in Xhosa.

He was suddenly a bit more glad Loki didn't have the knife in his possession at the moment. Bucky moved to the door, and ignored Loki's eyes suddenly locking onto his arm. Instinctively, he set Loki's radius a few inches tighter to the inside of the hut door. "Stay there," he ordered. 

Bucky pulled up the cloth and watched red-clad bodies race away giggling, a chunk of his anxiety fleeing as he watched their little legs pump with strength. They were getting faster.

They'd left a small wooden figure resting in the dirt outside the door. Bucky registered its presence, then felt his lips pull into a smile when he realized what it was. He carefully collected the item and moved back into the hut.

Loki was sitting with his back curved, eyes large in trepidation. The look was quickly overtaken by confusion as Bucky set the toy figurine next to him on his bed. "The kids brought you a welcome gift."

Loki frowned, staring at what Bucky had given him. He reached down and picked it up. It was a cat, made out of wood, the triangle ears topped with long and thin protrusions, the red and white paint on its small form messily applied. "A gift." Loki sounded doubtful, looking at it more closely. "What is it?"

Bucky shrugged. "Looks like a caracal to me. It's a wild cat with funny fur on its ears. Good hunters."

Loki glanced up at him in bewilderment, his frown deepening. "No. They meant this for you."

Bucky gave a breath of a laugh. He reached down beside his bed and pulled up the wooden wolf he kept near the head. "Don't think so. I got mine months ago."

"But they do not _know_ me," Loki said, the words like a protest. "They have not even seen me." 

"You don't need to know someone to be nice," Bucky said. "And they might not have seen you yet, but I'm pretty sure the entire village has heard us argue at this point."

The look Loki sent him was cautious and baffled, his mouth slightly open. He didn't say anything else, that one small act of kindness resetting his fear and anger into nothingness far more effectively than anything Bucky had attempted so far.

Bucky felt a stirring in his chest. _God, I love this place._

\------------

Loki stared at the cat in intervals for the rest of the day. He remained mostly silent without being stubborn about it, and accepted dinner from Bucky with a quiet note of thanks, his gaze on the door pensive rather than wary when Anwuli left. He wasn't exactly cordial, but he also didn't insist on driving any further discussions into spirals of angry delusions. 

Bucky felt equal parts relieved and guilty, with a third emotion he'd been refusing to name edging itself in more firmly alongside the others.

They made another trip to the bathrooms after Bucky was sure everyone in the village had already gone to sleep. Loki continued to move in the open like he was expecting a sniper had him in their sights, but he seemed a lot more at ease with movement in the darkness than he had any time he'd been out in Wakanda during the day. 

His enhanced skin also appeared to have absolutely no difficulty with mosquitoes, for which Bucky was a little jealous.

When they returned to the hut, Loki turned on his ear buds full force. He settled himself on his knees on the bed, like he normally would, then stopped himself with a noise of frustration. As Bucky watched, Loki clenched his jaw, staring down at the sheets beneath him like he was hovering over a high drop into an abyss that would swallow him whole. 

Bucky tried not to stare, moving onto his back on his own bed and gazing up at the hut ceiling until he heard movement. When he gave a cursory check, he found that Loki had forced himself down onto the bed on his side, his back pressed against the hut wall, his long body curled tight. He looked extremely uncomfortable, and the anger was back in his gaze. Bucky looked away before he would be caught staring, wanting to preserve the tentative peace that had clung to the past hours.

As for himself...he wasn't tired, hadn't done nearly enough physical work that day to keep his mind from spinning in circles far into the night. He stayed up late and then lapsed into a fitful sleep.

\-----------

He came awake to Loki's voice. 

"Wolf."

Bucky lurched up, groggy, some half-remembered dream sending his instincts into overdrive. He forced himself to calm when he realized where he was.

Loki was back to kneeling upright on the bed, his back to Bucky but his head turned so that his profile was visible. The glow of the earbuds cast stretches of light and shadow over his cheekbone.

He wasn't crying, but Loki looked drained. Depressed. Exhausted. 

He didn't say anything else, and if he hadn't been at least somewhat paying attention to Bucky, Bucky would have thought he'd only been dreaming that he'd heard him speak.

Outside, it was still dark, but the light from the moon had shifted appreciably from the last time he'd been awake. Not dawn yet, but maybe a couple of hours out. 

He carefully rose, sitting on the edge of his bed. "Need something?"

Loki's lips tightened, something juddering through his expression before he turned away fully. Bucky tried not to sigh audibly, knowing it would probably just get Loki's back up even more if he heard it.

Instead, he leveled his tone, and tried again. "What can I do?"

A telling tension formed along the lines of Loki's shoulders, that just as soon slumped. "I would..." He trailed off, hands pushing at the gauntlets, digging his nails in around the rings clamped over his fingers.

Bucky waited. 

Loki forced his hands apart. "The river." The words were short and sharp, dragged out in a swell of effort.

Bucky ran his hand through his hair to push it back from his face. "You want to go for a swim. Now."

Loki's shoulders jerked back up.

"Okay." Bucky stood from his bed. "Let's go."


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! I'm thinking realistically I will have to do one more posting week skip. It's my birthday in a few days and while I originally had absolutely nothing planned except eating and more writing, my parents are each individually requesting a portion of a day of my weekend from me for social time, which will require a couple hours of driving on top of things, so I'd be very rushed for another update next week. (Especially considering I seem to keep doing 6,500-7,000 word chapters now.) Next chapter should be up **Saturday, March 2nd**. You can keep an eye on my tumblr to see if that changes, though.
> 
> Edit: It's changed! New posting date is **Sunday, February 24th.**

Bucky was sitting on the shore when Loki finally waded out of the water and spread himself out on the ground next to him, body limp and expression blank. Water beads glinted on his face and neck, sliding off to join others in pooled patches on the ground, mud soaking into his clothes and skin. Loki ignored whatever discomfort there might have been from the feeling, and he didn't seem to mind the cold.

Bucky wished he could say the same. At least Wakanda's tropical climate frequently kept the nights warmer than what he was used to.

They'd been at the river for hours. Bucky had somehow managed to keep a handle on himself when Loki submerged his body for incredibly long stretches of time. He always resurfaced, sometimes in a completely different spot, like a damn seal. Thankfully, he didn't seem to be in a mood to try his hand at any attempts at drowning for this excursion.

Bucky let him rest, and watched a black rhino and her calf approach the opposite shore for a drink. The sounds of their footsteps on detritus and heavy snorts of breath were all but drowned out by the choir of chirping insects that filled the air. 

Eventually the minutes stretched long enough without movement from Loki that Bucky wondered if he was waiting for some sort of signal. Bucky cleared his throat, saw the pinch between Loki's eyebrows indicating that he'd heard. "You planning on sleeping there?"

Loki didn't respond for a moment, just stayed silent and still, his eyes closed and his pale face directed at the sky. "Sometimes," he began, "I am not sure what is real anymore. My mind is no longer impeded, by sickness or physical pain. And yet..." He trailed off, a deep-rooted unhappiness stealing over him, twisting his lips and making the muscles in his face twitch beneath the moonlight.

Across the river, the rhino calf made a loud squealing noise as it followed its mother back into the trees.

Bucky folded his arms, wondering if Shuri could add some sort of heating component into the prosthetic so it felt less like a giant metal icicle pushing into his skin. "You're a lot more put together than most people would be in your place."

Loki laughed, the sound short and hollow. "I would perhaps equate that more to the lack of choice than will."

Bucky frowned. "You really feel that way."

Loki exhaled heavily. "I cannot clearly remember a time when I did not. There were paths I might have taken..." His face creased, a tear escaping through his closed eyelids. "It does not matter."

Bucky felt his throat tighten, his eyes on the glinting silver of his Stabilizing Beads. He wanted this to stop, wanted them to do more than ram themselves up against their own failures. "Back in that cave...you told me after you only got out because it was what I wanted. I don't know what kind of miscommunication there might have been from me-"

"There was none." Loki's face pinched and relaxed. "As I said. My mind is..." He finally opened his eyes, only to flinch and then glare at the stars. "I want to believe your words as to your intentions. But you will turn on me eventually, or else break under the weight of the task you have given yourself, until you remove yourself from this post. I simply wanted to...expedite the event. There is no point in pretending that I am something I am not. Or fighting against the inevitability of whichever abyss of torment that fate will see fit to throw me into next." His lips twisted into a farce of a smile. "And I find I am not terribly patient."

Bucky shrugged. "That's fine."

Loki sent him a look, eyebrows raised in incredulity. 

"The impatient thing," Bucky amended. "Not the rest. I mean, I could do without getting torn into twelve times a day. But honestly, don't think there's a leg for me to stand on."

Loki shook his head with bitter amusement as he curled his hands. "If you are about to apologize to me-"

"What else can I do?" Bucky groped for a rock lodged in the ground, yanking it free from the mud and throwing it into the center of the river. "I coulda just let you get it all out of your system. But I fight back." 

Loki huffed. "I would not exactly call it fighting. You have yet to cause me any intentional physical pain."

Bucky sighed. _Can you not sound so damn disappointed by that?_ "Wasn't talking about my fists."

"Yes, well, you've hardly done enough in that respect, either," Loki said irritably. He turned his face away.

Bucky didn't respond with the frustration he felt. This weird spiral thing Loki kept trying to do, the way he both seemed to fear Bucky turning on him but got pissed when he took his side...it threw him for a damn loop every time. And he didn't know what the right steps were to stop it.

If Loki had been someone he'd wronged, (" _Do you even remember them?_ ") he wouldn't have argued anything. And maybe he should have just let Loki think what he wanted, kept the arguments to protecting other people from his contempt. God knew Bucky deserved all of the contempt the world had to offer.

But he couldn't do that. Not this time, and not for this reason. Bucky didn't know how Loki stirred this spark in him to give him the urge to use words, like his need to defend himself physically in combat, but here they were. 

"I thought we had reached an understanding," Bucky said, his voice quiet. "After the airship attack."

Loki ground his teeth. His eyes filled with more tears and he made that noise again, the one he'd made in the bathrooms the day before - as if all of his disdain had coated glue to the inside of his throat. He rose into a sitting position, hands loose in his lap as he stared at the metal gauntlets encasing his hands.

He spoke under his breath, so Bucky had to strain to hear him. "Fool. All this power, and still you are weak."

Bucky was fairly sure that Loki didn't mean him. "God, you're not - you agreed to let them _cut you open._ You let them do it all in one sitting, without even asking anyone to stop."

Loki glanced at him with a sardonic eye. "I was there."

Bucky shook his head. " _I_ was there. I don't think I want to know what strong is on your planet if you think doing that sort of thing makes you weak."

Loki's lips turned up bitterly at the edges. He dropped his hands, staring out over the water. "Well, even if your words turn out to be false...perhaps, I will...attempt more graciousness, from now on."

"Okay," Bucky said, still feeling strongly like something was off. "Thanks." He waited a beat, wondering if he was going to regret plowing back into this. "I couldn't let them kill you."

Loki angled his head so he was watching Bucky sidelong. He'd done that thing again where his face was washed of all expression. It made Bucky unaccountably feel like he was doing something wrong, but that was just par for the course here. 

He kept speaking. "You don't have to say anything. If you're just gonna argue the point, get pissed off again...maybe it's better if I don't talk about this. But I want you to know that giving you full access to your powers back on the airship, that wasn't about me saving my own ass. None of it was."

Loki dipped his head forward, exhaustion stealing over his features. "So you've said." He didn't say anything else, not about whether he believed Bucky or not. He only looked at the ground, a shudder running down his back. "I thought the removal of the rot would help. Yet it still feels as if the air is a gaping beast waiting to draw me up into its jaws."

"It's not," Bucky said. "And even if it was, I'd just reach up and pull you back down." He shrugged. "Then Shuri would make you some sort of gravity device to keep you grounded."

Loki shook his head, becoming more pulled into lethargy by the second, his voice dulled of emotion. "Still so adamant at my survival, Wolf."

"Yeah, well, you might not be the only person here with a skewed view of how things should be." Bucky gripped his fingers tightly together. "You still really wanna die, huh?"

"It would certainly be the simpler path." Loki's shoulders slumped. "But I am here, am I not?"

"Yeah." Bucky ran his hand through his hair. "I get that." 

They went quiet. Bucky watched the moon reflect off the gentle stirs of coursing water, the river returned to its normal flow now that Loki wasn't in there to disrupt it. Something was moving through the shadows of the trees on the other side - some animal Bucky couldn't get a clear sight on.

He wasn't sure if this most recent conversation had been a victory. It felt like it should have been one, since this time they'd managed to avoid Loki completely descending into viciousness. But Bucky just felt hollow in its aftermath.

_So what the hell else are you gonna do, pal?_

The only damn thing he'd done since he'd torn free from Hydra's lies four years ago.

Keep going.

He stood, and double checked that his metal hand was wiped of dirt before he held it out. "We should get back," Bucky said. "Unless you want everyone to see us out here when they get up. I gave the kids some pointers on the finer points of stealth once, but, you know - kids. They're kind of chaotic."

Loki eyed his prosthetic. His slender shoulders twitched under drying hair that was curling at the tips. "There is another thing I did not mention. About your limb."

Bucky tensed. "What about it?"

Loki shook his head, plucking at a cuff of his damp tunic. "You would perhaps be served better by calling your friend who made the device. But there are...traces, of my magic. Within it."

Bucky gave Loki a hard stare. "You're pulling my leg."

"I did not intend to," Loki hissed, agitation rising like a wave cresting against a rock. "It was - you allowed me to _touch_ the limb, when they..." He trailed off, the rage bitten off. He stared at his hands. "But why would you believe me, when it must seem that I have done nothing but hound you time and again with my ravings."

Bucky shook his head. "You're right that you're making a lot of bullshit assumptions about what I think. Shuri made the arm to absorb energy. Guess your magic counted."

Loki peered up at him suspiciously. "To what end?"

"Defense and longevity. I had a metal arm before, but it was a piece of crap compared to this one. Went dead any time it even got a moderate electric shock. We got kind of sidetracked with moving you before I could get all of the details on this new one. I'll call Shuri later, and she'll clue us in."

"Us," Loki said, confused. "You should be angry with me, for having so little control in the face of your goodwill."

"Kinda tired for that, now. Give me time to sleep and recharge and I'll think about it." Loki drew his head up, and Bucky winced. "Sorry. That was a joke." He gave a tight smile. "I can't say I'm over the moon about it, but it hasn't caused any issues yet. Now, are you gonna let me help you, or am I just going to stand here waiting like an idiot until the sun comes up."

"My legs are in full working order. I am fully capable of rising under my own power."

(" _I can get by on my own._ ")

Bucky felt a surge of frustration. "Loki, just - will you grab my goddamn hand already?"

Something flashed in Loki's eyes, unreadable before he smoothed his face to hide it. He reached out, hesitating before contact, but Bucky just closed the rest of the short distance and hefted him up.

\-------------

" _White Wolf!_ "

Bucky jerked awake with the clinging tendrils of dread from a set of incoherent nightmares about white coats and tools and screams. It took him a long moment to regain himself from the disorientation, to take in the brightness of the sun shining outside the hut, the temperature inside risen to just shy of what he'd feel was uncomfortable.

He turned his gaze to the neighboring bed, his heart still jabbing like the open bolt mechanism of a submachine gun. Loki was there, whole. He was asleep on his side on his bed - naked, apparently having slipped out of his wet and muddy clothes before dropping them haphazardly in the center of the hut. He'd pulled the sheet over himself, but it was resting low enough on his torso that Bucky still saw the clear press of ribs against skin as he breathed.

His mind flashed on what it was like to see those ribs cranked apart.

A booming voice echoed loudly outside. " _White Wolf! Come out here!_ "

Bucky had several missed calls, and one incoming from Shuri.

Loki wasn't in any apparent immediate danger, so Bucky answered his Kimoyo Beads first. Shuri appeared, her expression irritated. "I have been trying to reach you. M'Baku is heading your way."

" _White Wolf!_ "

"No kidding," Bucky said dryly. Loki had fortunately replaced his earbuds before bed and remained oblivious to the noise. 

"I'm sorry," Shuri said. "I _told_ him his presence would cause stress for my recovering patient."

Bucky shrugged. "It's actually good timing; Loki's asleep. And whatever he wants is probably important."

Shuri scoffed and raised her eyebrows. "You have _met_ M'Baku, right?"

Bucky felt his lips twitch up. "It'll be important to him. I'll call you later."

M'Baku stood at the top of the hill, a lone figure in armor and fur. He shouted with the ease that most people breathed. Bucky wondered how long he would have kept at it if he hadn't come out of the hut.

As it was, M'Baku quieted when he saw Bucky, and then simply waited where he was with staff in hand.

Anwuli's daughter, Ndidi, stood gathered in a line of her friends at the base of the hill. They were curious but tense, gawking at the imposing sight the leader of the Jabari made, standing in the bright sun in his traditional wooden armor.

Now that M'Baku was no longer clogging the skies with his yelling, Bucky could hear Anwuli's voice in the distance. He moved closer to Ndidi, tapping her shoulder and grinning when she spooked and whirled around, eyes wide on her painted face. They immediately roved over his prosthetic.

"Ingcuka," she gasped.

"Sounds like your ma's calling you," Bucky said. 

The rest of the kids realized he was there and began all speaking at once, gathering closer to him and pointing at M'Baku until Bucky spoke in Xhosa and explained that yeah, that was the leader of the famed Jabari, stopping by for a visit. 

"He's not here for trouble," Bucky said, even though he wasn't actually a hundred percent sure if that was the case. "Just stay down here."

The kids were torn between disappointment for their unfulfilled curiosity and continued nervousness at M'Baku being so close to their homes. Bucky made sure they weren't following him as he made his way up the hill.

"Do you have permanent hearing damage?" M'Baku asked when he finally reached him, in a straightforward way that made Bucky think he was being completely serious.

"No," Bucky said.

M'Baku frowned. "Then why did you take so long to emerge?"

"I was asleep."

"In the middle of the day? You are named for the wolf, but I expected you to have more the schedule and temperament of a lark."

Bucky narrowed his eyes, thinking maybe it was better to keep quiet than to say what he really wanted to at that point. 

M'Baku turned his eyes on the farm, where the kids had finally been dispersed from their staring by the adults. Though in their place, he could see that now the _adults_ were trying to watch their conversation without notice.

They didn't give a crap about Loki or Bucky, or whatever they'd done to end up here. But one look at M'Baku and they were as on edge as he'd ever seen them.

M'Baku turned back to Bucky. "The king asked me to see if there was any possibility of his men being freed to serve for their crimes. The ones who attacked you."

"Oh." Bucky tensed. "I don't really see how that's my business."

"It does not surprise me that you were ignorant of this possibility. You were coddled and kept as safe as an infant even as Wakanda saw war within its borders. The king's own allies and closest friend turned on him. Tribe fought against Tribe. And in the end, the usurpers were allowed to return to their lives as if it had all simply been a misunderstanding." M'Baku's grip on his wooden staff tightened. "The king abhors the shedding of blood. He pardons his subjects with the intent to teach them a better way."

Bucky swallowed. "Sounds like something a good king would do."

M'Baku laughed. "Perhaps better than those that have come before him. But he is not perfect. We keep to tradition for a reason, and tradition would not deal with treason so lightly."

"Gonna guess you don't consider the War Dogs to be tradition, then."

"They may have been useful for a time, but now change has come, and it requires direction. Wakanda moves through the world in plain sight." M'Baku turned a severe look on him. "I have come here because it is you who those men might have caused permanent harm. And to question the king is much different from actions of willful disobedience towards him and the Tribal Council." He lifted his chin, staring down his nose at Bucky. "I would ask what you wish for their fate to be."

Bucky felt his blood go cold. "You wouldn't kill them."

M'Baku shrugged. "The king would certainly take some persuading. But I have told him the honorable way would be to leave the decision to those they wronged."

Bucky swallowed, ignoring the part of himself that thought that things would be a lot easier if he knew those men were gone. "Do what King T'Challa wants," Bucky said.

M'Baku watched him carefully. "You would request no payment of blood?"

"No. I don't want anymore blood."

"That is the answer I expected." M'Baku breathed out and rolled his eyes skyward. "Glory to Hanuman. Perhaps you are not completely stupid." 

Bucky blinked. "What?"

M'Baku gestured at the land around them, at the people still watching. "How would it look if Wakanda allowed an outsider to take the lives of some of their own?"

"I thought you said giving me the choice was the honorable way," Bucky said, irritated despite himself.

"It is. That does not mean the choices you then made would be held in the same regard." M'Baku shook his head, switching away from English to mutter under his breath. Bucky made a mental note to ask Shuri about the Jabari language. 

"Right," Bucky said. Something coiled tight inside of him loosened up a little. "Thanks all the same."

M'Baku turned back to him. "The only reason I believe there is any worth in speaking with you at all is because you do not take your position for granted. You were the first outsider Wakanda embraced to live within it. You must be an example to all that come after."

"Don't think I'm much of an example for anything," Bucky said dryly, to cover his discomfort at the words.

"You do have at least one thing," M'Baku said.

"What, a healthy self awareness?"

M'Baku smiled. "That answer is funnier than mine. Good-bye, White Wolf. I hope the next time one of your kind gets dragged here half-dead, they will be of a more impressive stock."

Then he left. Just turned around and started walking off, like he was going to casually stroll the entire length of Wakanda to get back to his city. For all Bucky knew, maybe he would.

He wondered what M'Baku's answer would have been.

\-------------

Loki woke in the late afternoon, his hair a mess and his eyes still ringed with dark as he jerked his torso up from the bed, eyes moving wildly before he focused on Bucky. Something like relief softened his expression before it quickly smoothed out, his hands going to remove his earbuds.

Bucky tossed over Loki's tunic and pants. "Washed your clothes for you."

Loki blinked, a small furrow appearing on his forehead. "They are not mine."

"They are now. Just like that wooden cat belongs to you now. Are you hungry?"

"What are you doing?" There was something warning in Loki's tone.

Bucky shrugged, feeling a little guilty at coming in so hot. But he'd spent the entire day after waking with a bit too much energy for his own good. "I haven't actually asked you what your food requirements are. You seem like you could stand to gain a few pounds."

Loki tightened up. He reached for the tunic and pulled it roughly over his head before grabbing the pants. "I am sorry to have assailed your eyes."

Bucky pulled his lips tight with a sigh. "No, come on. I didn't mean it like _that_." He belatedly remembered to turn his gaze away as Loki threw off the sheet. "We're going for health, not appearance."

"Health?" Loki laughed, low and scornful, and a lot closer now that he was standing up. "Why? I am now indestructible to most known things in the universe."

"You're not immune to feeling hunger, though, right?" Bucky shrugged. "I have a way higher caloric requirement compared to most of the people here, even when I spend the day doing nothing. I can go a really long time before it becomes an actual issue, but it's not fun."

That gave Loki pause. Bucky turned back to him, and saw he was back fully dressed in his green and gold and was watching him with a look of careful consideration. It wasn't exactly a soothing feeling. 

Loki nodded at Bucky's beads. "Could you not simply ask your friend?"

Bucky winced, very aware of the fact that earlier in the week he probably would have at the very least considered doing that before consulting Loki. "I'm asking _you._ I told you I wasn't gonna go digging where you didn't want me to anymore."

Something hard entered Loki's eyes. He spoke like he was testing Bucky. "So if I refuse to respond to your queries, you would allow me to attempt to waste away?"

Bucky felt a coil of anger try to trickle in as he recognized the familiar steps to this dance. "And what if I say no to _that_? I'm getting the feeling this is another one of those things you do where there's not a right answer."

Loki's expression shuttered. "One of those things I do," he repeated, tone flat. He blinked and seemed to come back to himself, the face of stone leaving but his expression still subdued by weariness. "My apologies." He looked away, but it seemed like he was going in the other direction, now fully on his way to shutting down.

"That's not..." Bucky backed off, sitting on his bed so he felt less like he was trying to intimidate Loki into complying. "You were really hungry when we got you out of that hole in the lab, until you got too sick to eat. I just want to make sure I don't accidentally starve you like a complete moron. And I get the feeling you wouldn't volunteer this information yourself." _And I'm not sure if I should be worried about you trying to starve yourself out of spite._

Loki sighed. He turned his gaze back to Bucky, his hands flexing against the gauntlets. "In truth...I do not know. I did not have time to fully investigate the parameters of my new state before I was..." He shut his eyes, a heavy breath jutting out his lower jaw. "...contained."

Bucky tightened his lips at the reminder. "So we'll play it by ear. And hopefully keep you from losing any more mass."

Loki grimaced, the expression melting away soon after it formed. His gaze looked far away, his skin going pale even for him.

Bucky had a feeling he knew where Loki's thoughts were going. He spoke to call back his attention. "Anwuli's probably gonna bring dinner soon, so we won't have long to wait. You up for a call to Shuri in the meantime?"

Loki's eyes narrowed back on him, some of the haunted look leaving his face. "If we must."

Well, it wasn't a hell no.

\--------------

"Say it again," Shuri demanded, her gaze severe. 

"I was asking about the technology you imported in the arm that can harm Loki," Bucky said. "Making sure it doesn't interact poorly now that I apparently have some of his energy inside of it, too."

Shuri shook her head, her micro braids shifting gently with the movement. "Except I did not _give_ you the technology to harm Loki."

Bucky frowned. He looked at Loki, for half a second wondering if he'd just been messing with him. Loki curled his lip, pinching into the sheets on his bed, and didn't confirm or deny the thought.

Bucky didn't really doubt him, though, was the thing. Just like he didn't really doubt Shuri. 

So what the hell was going on?

He could feel a headache coming on, the tension in his neck filtering down to the remnants of the pain in his spine. "Loki seems to think you did."

Shuri defended herself with ease. "Of course _he_ would. But it's nonsense. Send me a scan of your arm, and I'll show you exactly what is in it. I'll expand every atom of its components if it will satisfy him."

Bucky did as she asked. Shuri looked off to the side for a long moment, her line of sight shifting quickly. Instead of quickly sending him back proof of the nonexistence of Loki's beliefs, however, her brow furrowed. "You do have it. That does not make any sense."

Bucky felt a huge swirl of anxiety rush into his stomach. "Did you have help making it?"

"No. And there's not some sort of stabilizing field generator in your arm," Shuri snapped. "It is not like the tools I wielded for surgery, it has simply been taken and stored as if..." She turned to him. "The table. The table you broke. It was shielded so that Loki would not be able to destroy it."

Loki was definitely listening to the conversation in increased interest now.

Bucky swallowed. "So how do I get it out?"

"It is meant to be utilized in combat scenarios. But you also have a condensed form of Loki's energy in an adjacent container in the arm. I would not recommend getting rid of _that_ anywhere near populated areas."

Bucky swallowed. He hadn't expected this conversation he'd meant to have to comfort Loki to be so damn anxiety-inducing for himself. "So what you're saying is I essentially have a bomb grafted onto my body."

"Only if you release it without care, which I know you will not do. That energy could rest in there until the end of days without causing problems." She paused. "But if you are very concerned, give me a few days to come up with a way to properly drain it."

Bucky instantly felt even guiltier. "No hurry. I know you have more important stuff."

Shuri rolled her eyes. "Bucky, your peace of mind is important."

Bucky shrugged. "You're telling me that as the same gal who made me watch that weird dancing Winnie-the-Pooh video."

"That was _comedy._ "

"It was something all right." He looked up at Loki, who wasn't looking at him anymore. "I trust you," Bucky said to Shuri. "You said it could keep, so...we'll get it out whenever you have time."

They said their goodbyes, and then Bucky looked at Loki, whose face was still set into something less than happy. "Okay - I'm gonna guess that for whatever reason, you don't like that I want that stuff out." Loki didn't say anything. Bucky sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't want that kind of potential for violence in my possession."

Loki snorted. "This is justification of the removal of poison from a sharp knife as if it will be any less able to kill. You act as if you are completely savage and dangerous, but you fail to see just how very 'safe' your every move has been until now. By your own will."

It still kind of felt like Loki was getting frustrated for all of the wrong reasons, but the way he'd worded it...

Bucky stared back. "That's really nice of you to say."

Loki scowled. "That was not a compliment."

Bucky let the irony bring a half smile onto his face. "It was for me." He sobered, leaning over his knees. "You have to understand something," he said. "I came here so I'd be fixed, but the truth is that there's still a lot about me that is really fucked up. You've started arguing with me like I'm some goddamn herald of righteousness. It's flattering, but it's not the truth." 

He didn't go into the details, how sometimes on bad days (all of them) every little thing that bothered him sent his emotions into hairpin turns, moving his brain from calm and peaceful to violent urges for destruction and escape in an instant.

How he was so, so glad to be out of that lab, to be back on the farm, but he hadn't been able to let his excess energy out in days, and in the meantime hadn't really been able to focus on anything but Loki. Loki, and the endless frustration of what Bucky could have said better to maybe not keep sending them into arguments. Even now he could feel them getting sucked into another one, like an inescapable riptide.

Loki lowered his chin. "So why not give in?"

Bucky ground his teeth. "You've already seen me give in. The fact that no one died wasn't because of me."

Loki snarled. " _You_ were the one who said not to attack anyone."

"I sure has hell didn't expect you to actually follow that rule when I let you go." He gestured at the hut. "We've been doing nothing but arguing about how I'm going to fail you, betray you, how it sucks that I won't just be 'honest' and hit you and hate you like I'm supposed to. How if you had your powers you could blast me to pieces. And I already know you think words mean shit, otherwise we wouldn't keep coming back around and around like dogs on a goddamn race track." He stared at Loki unwaveringly. "You keep fighting me on believing what I say. But you didn't fight me on those words. Why not?"

Instead of answering, Loki's eyes darted to the curtain of the hut as he lurched up into standing. A moment later Bucky heard approaching footsteps, and then the curtain was pulled aside. Ndidi stepped inside with her arms holding several bottles of water. She purposefully put them on the floor, then straightened and stared up at Loki, her head barely coming to his waist. Loki stared back.

"Ingqawa," she said, determinedly. _Caracal._

"That is not my name," Loki said, voice low.

She fled in a whip of red cloth. Loki didn't relax, but he didn't move, eyes locked on the door.

Bucky let out the breath he'd been holding. "Give me a second," he said as he stood. Loki was still watching the door. "Loki," he said, and eyes like ice turned on him, a maelstrom of emotion lurking. "I'll be just outside," Bucky said. "I'll be right back. Just stay in here."

Bucky stepped through the curtain and saw that Anwuli was coming, her hair wrapped in a scarf and the white lines on her skin bright in the setting sun. Her hands were full of a large tray, which she had to hold carefully as Ndidi interrupted her balance by gripping into her bared leg, giggly, flush with giddy adrenaline that she struggled to contain as Anwuli scolded her.

"I am sorry," Anwuli said when she reached him. "I told her not to go in. I did not want to yell, in case that was worse. Is Loki all right?"

"He's fine," Bucky said. "We were just trying to work some things out." _At least, I hope that's what we were doing,_ Bucky thought, his feelings on the interruption ambivalent.

"I made spaghetti," Anwuli said. "Let me know if he likes it." She handed him the tray, which was fragrant with tomato and spices and laden with a large bowl of noodles and vegetables and beef.

Bucky felt a little guilty that he hadn't thought to ask Loki about his food preferences before now. Just expected him to eat what he was given. _You're just dropping the ball left and right, Barnes._ "Thank you."

Anwuli smiled, her dark eyes fond. "I am glad you were able to leave the hut with him this morning. It can only improve from here."

Bucky gave her a nod and a small smile, all the while wishing he had even a fraction of the percentage of the faith and positivity she seemed to have an endless supply of.

Loki was still on his feet when Bucky re-entered, tension lining his frame. Bucky held out a bowl to him, placing it in his hands when he brought them up.

"Sorry," Bucky said first off, moving to his bed to eat. "I got distracted. I told you I'd keep the kids out of the hut and I didn't."

Loki mirrored him in sitting down with his food, but he was still seething. "When you again see that child, tell her that I will accept no other name but my own."

That seemed like a sore spot. As if Loki didn't have enough of those to deal with.

Still, the request was doable. "I'll let her know," Bucky said. "It's not like teasing, if that's what you're worried about."

"To be given a title for the way one argues," Loki said, voice dripping with sarcasm and an underlying viciousness. "I'm certain the term holds nothing but respect." He shook his head, his hands around the bowl growing a little too tight. "It is not my _name._ I will not have them take this from me, too."

As if all of Wakanda had been in on his cruel imprisonment. "You weren't wearing your earbuds," Bucky said. "You must have heard Anwuli talking to me. Did you get any sort of ill intentions from that?"

Loki swallowed, and shut his eyes, visibly fighting back whatever words of anger he had building under the surface. He spoke again, careful enunciation in every word. "It is not. My name."

(" _My name is Bucky._ ")

_He's allowed to not like everything about this,_ Bucky told himself. _Just cool it. Leave him alone._

"I'll tell them to stop," Bucky agreed. "And to call you by your real name."

Loki's eyes fluttered open. He looked vaguely surprised. "Thank you, Wolf," he said.

Bucky snorted at the irony. "You know my name is Bucky, right?"

"You have only allowed that from one person," Loki said, tone cautious.

Shuri. Bucky wondered if the reluctance had more to do with the wariness Loki had of her or him. He obviously equated names with a certain kind of respect. Not that Bucky felt much different, but White Wolf...accepting that had felt like the gateway to accepting the person he was trying to be. Moving forward. When Loki had picked it up, it hadn't seemed pertinent to correct him, not when "Wolf" was simple and every syllable for him had been a struggle.

He shrugged. "I won't mind if you keep using it." _Especially since I don't want to contradict myself by looking like I dislike it and set you off again._

Loki stared at him like he could see those thoughts just by looking at him. Bucky dug into his food, using that as an excuse for a conversation break. 

Eventually, Loki lowered his eyes, and started on his own meal.

The rest of the evening went fine. It was only as they returned from the bathrooms and Bucky rested himself on his bed, as Loki's breaths slowed in sleep, that he remembered that he still hadn't gotten his damn answer to the conversation they'd been trying to have before dinner.

He exhaled, inwardly cursing.

_Remember what Anwuli said,_ he thought. _It can only get better from here._

That was, as long as Bucky's shit brain didn't screw it all up.

He gazed over at Loki in the darkness, saw him curled on his side with an arm pillowing his head, the other clutched in close to his chest. He remembered that Loki had expressed similar sentiments about his own mind that morning after his swim. 

_God, we're a fucking pair, aren't we?_

\-------------

There was wind howling. Bucky woke to the sight of the cloth over the hut door flapping inwards and an inexplicable feeling of anxiety. It was strong enough that he sat up, giving a quick glance to Loki to see if something was wrong. Loki was asleep, and Bucky would have been jealous of his ability to remain unconscious through the use of sound-cancelling devices if he knew he could never comfortably wear them himself. He needed his senses clear. Always.

The wind died down. Bucky's eyes went to the cloth hanging down at the door, and he froze, heart pounding. 

In the midst of the silvery shine of the moon was a shadow. It held the shape of a person, standing with their arms at their sides, the visibility of the head cut off from the short height of the opening.

Bucky frowned, telling himself it was just one of the tribespeople. "Hello?" 

There was no answer or movement. Bucky carefully rose, stepping towards the cloth, his instincts screaming. When he pulled it aside, there was no one on the other side, or even a trace that anyone had been standing there. He let it hang back down, and saw that the shadow was completely gone.

_You're losing it, Barnes,_ he thought. 

He couldn't make himself go back to sleep, his instincts in overdrive, the anxiety refusing to be crushed down no matter how much he tried to talk himself through it. Maybe he just hadn't quite been awake yet, and it was the remnant of some dream. That had happened to him once or twice before.

He sat in the archway of the hut until morning, half in and half out, eyes relentlessly scanning the hillside.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ended up finishing this chapter earlier than expected! Next chapter will be up **Saturday, March 2nd.**

By morning, Bucky felt worn down to his boots. He'd refused to change spots, to put a more obvious reality to his sentinel, even though his instincts told him he needed to place himself so he had a more natural point of aim. He didn't have a gun, but he had the arm, and his knife was still embedded in the wall near the doorway in easy enough reach.

His back had gone through sensations of vague discomfort to a sharper hurt, to a sort of cold, expanding numbness that he knew would become much more of a reality when he finally moved and released the muscles into sensation again. He ignored it, used it to help keep himself fully conscious, still not able to convince himself that what he'd seen earlier had been nothing.

Loki had been restless in his sleep, sometimes twisting in agitated movement, his breathing patterns changing, his brow drawn tight whenever Bucky turned to check on him. Like he could sense that something was wrong. 

Or maybe that was just Bucky's self-centeredness at play.

It was nearly dawn by the time Loki started moving into wakefulness. Bucky had made sure to come back inside at the first signs of stirring, not wanting to be caught in the doorway. He gathered a change of clothes, moving through the twinges of pain from his long watch.

Loki was kneeling in the center of his bed, and it looked like at least he'd managed some rest in the midst of his tossing and turning. He'd lost some of the look of obvious stress, the kind that made Bucky feel like he only needed to give him a light prod to drive him to tear his own skin off. 

Bucky offered him a small smile, his voice dry. "Ready for another day?"

Loki raised his eyebrows, gave a heavy exhale, and slid from his bed when Bucky gestured for him to follow.

They didn't say much as they headed for the bathrooms. Loki wandered off towards the room with the showers as soon as they entered. Bucky stood near the main entrance, staring after him for a long moment. 

He stayed where he was.

Loki looked vaguely irritated when he came back out later, his hair damp and darkening spots at the shoulders of his tunic. Bucky headed him off with a nod towards the baths before he could speak his mind. "Do you mind if I soak for a bit?" His voice came out gruff and low, the lack of energy seeping in.

Loki glanced at the door to the exit. "The people here are beginning to rise."

Bucky frowned. "How can you tell? I don't hear anything."

Loki didn't respond, only stared at the floor in tense silence.

"Okay," Bucky said. "That was probably a dumb question. We got a bit of a late start. I'll take a quick shower, and-"

"No," Loki said, voice dull. He shook his head, his gaze still lowered. "Do as you like."

Bucky waited, watching the lines of Loki's face. "It's not worth it if there's too big a possibility you'll have a meltdown."

Loki's eye twitched and his gaze at the floor narrowed in anger. 

Bucky shrugged. "Just saying."

"Why are you so readily accommodating," Loki asked in exasperation, hands curling at his sides. "Do you not have a life you wish you could return to?"

 _Don't you?_ Bucky sighed. "That was kinda the whole point of us coming here. Before you showed up I was taking care of goats and doing farm work. I liked this place. I wanted to come back." He shook his head. "But all of that stuff was and is being done just fine without me."

"You do seem rather overqualified to remain a simple goat herder," Loki said, gaze pointedly scanning over the prosthetic before meeting Bucky's eyes. "So overseeing a prisoner is now your new method of repayment to these people." 

Bucky didn't like the way Loki said that, like all he was could be boiled down to some sort of task. A burden. "Maybe it had something to do with that at first," he admitted. "But I wasn't forced into it. It's not like it was a demand."

"Yet you interact with the duty with such complete continuous care nevertheless," Loki said, eyes shrewd. He bunched his shoulders up. "Do what you will. I will...alert you, if I believe someone is coming."

Bucky rubbed at his sore neck, then ran his hand over his face. He really needed a shave soon. "Thanks. I won't be long."

He headed into the baths. Streams of water poured out into large shallow pools, buckets set to the side for rinsing. The temperature of the water was easily adjustable from the user's Kimoyo Beads. Bucky set it to blazing, until steam made visibility extremely poor. 

Loki was a dark shape against the door. He didn't speak, and Bucky didn't know if he was watching him prep for his wash or paying more attention to the rest of the tribe.

Bucky felt his muscles sing in relief as soon as he sat in the water, as the high temperature engulfed him and stimulated blood flow. He moved the fingers of his prosthetic and his living hand at the same time, just to get distracted by the difference in sensations between them. His flesh hand was overwhelmed by feelings of warmth and light resistance as he moved it through the water. The prosthetic, in contrast, cut through fluid with ease, sending messages about the level of safety of the temperature to his brain. It was precise - more perceptive in some ways. Less in others. It made Bucky stronger, more capable, but it couldn't feel _good._ The arm didn't have anything to gain from self-indulgence.

He breathed out into the steam, tilting his head back, and for a moment felt his brain just...stop. 

It didn't last long, and when it was over all of the usual guilt and feelings and memories crowded in with a new freshness made sharper by their absence. When he opened his eyes Loki was sitting on the floor, his legs drawn up.

Bucky bowed his head. Then he pulled himself out of the water to begin washing his hair.

\-----------

It was well into civil twilight when they exited, golden light spilling out over the lingering shadows, the trees that bordered the river dark against the brightening sky. Bucky hated that early morning chill that infiltrated every point of him that wasn't quite dry, made even more prominent by the contrast to the hot bath. If there was one thing he missed about being in that damn lab, it was Shuri's full body dryer.

Some of the older adults were up and moving about by the time Loki and Bucky made their way back to his hut, their clothes flashes of bright color outside of the pale tan of their own homes. Bucky nodded at them as he passed, instinctively stepping closer to Loki. They greeted Bucky softly, and Loki tensed at their voices, but he didn't turn to look at any of them.

Bucky wasn't surprised when they neared his hut and Loki's long legs moved him faster ahead so he could escape into it as quickly as possible. He was settled cross-legged on the bed when Bucky entered, eyes closed and brow furrowed. He shuddered after each careful breath.

Bucky wondered what it must have took for him to ignore his wary instincts around the adult members of the tribe. He carefully sat himself down on his own bed to give Loki what space he could offer. "You okay?"

"Why on earth would I be okay," Loki asked, eyes still closed. 

"Guess I'm just full of stupid questions this morning," Bucky muttered. "I meant...from the trip out."

A muscle jumped in Loki's cheek. "I would like to go for a walk today."

Bucky drew his head up. "You...what? Are you serious?"

Loki pried his eyes open into a challenging glare. One hand pinched into the palm of its partner.

He _was_ serious. Bucky gestured at the cloth door. "You're not...there'll be people."

Loki's expression stayed stubbornly unchanged. "Then lead me away from them."

Bucky bit into the inside of his lip, already imagining a slew of bad scenarios, what it was going to do to Loki to force himself out into the open like that. "What's bringing this on?"

"Can I not _simply_..." Loki paused, lowering his eyes, and sighed through his teeth. "You are keeping yourself in here because of me."

"It's my home," Bucky said, even as he was taken aback at Loki's concern. "It's as good a place to be as any."

Loki gave a terse shake of his head. "Before you first took this task you tore yourself away, and after you attempted to convince me to join you so you would be allowed to roam. Now you do not even allow yourself brief strolls. You have been hiding how much you dislike this enclosure."

Bucky didn't like that Loki had figured that out. He breathed out heavily through his nose. "I'll be a lot more twitchy if you get forced into a panic attack," he said. "But thanks. Really. I can deal with a lot worse."

Loki glanced up. "But you do not disagree that it has been difficult."

"It's fine." Bucky let his voice soften. "You can't force yourself into recovery."

Loki smiled, a brief extension that quickly faded as soon as it formed. "Unless someone were to cut me open and remove everything that taints me."

Bucky clenched his jaw at the reminder of how it felt to have Loki screaming under him. "I meant the mind part." He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. "Look, like it or not, going out in the open alone was what nearly killed us last time. I don't think that's something we can just shake off all at once."

"We," Loki repeated, and now he met Bucky's eyes steadily.

Bucky rose from his bed and grabbed a bag to pack water and food. "We'll go if you really want to. But we're taking it slow."

Loki watched him with a considering look. "You can always just release me again," he commented. 

"Nice try," Bucky said. "We'll wait for breakfast, get some provisions from Anwuli, and then we'll head out. Sound good?"

Loki sighed. He didn't confirm or deny the question, his expression switching firmly back into the realm of unhappiness. "I woke much earlier this morning than I let on. I saw you in the door."

Bucky tensed in an anxious jolt, the spike of memory of the shadow over the cloth abruptly washing back over him. "So? What about it?"

Loki pressed his lips together, not buying Bucky's put upon calm.

"I can handle it," Bucky repeated, even if he was suddenly wondering if it really was being stuck in here that was making him see things.

Loki lowered his head, black hair partially obscuring his face. The pinching motion of his hand moved to a ring on his gauntlets. "Of course."

Bucky's throat tightened. He was pretty sure he would have preferred a fight to whatever that response was.

\-----------

Loki's earbuds were firmly in place when they left the hut, on a lowered setting so he would still be able to hear if Bucky spoke. He paused on the other side of the cloth, wincing in the full brightness of the sun until he adjusted. His gaze was immediately drawn to the huddle of kids near the goat pen, some standing on the grass while others perched on the fence. Ndidi, a little bolder and more willing to court danger than the rest, watched from a slightly closer perch on a tree. Bucky sent her an exasperated look. 

They were there to watch the spectacle of Loki leaving. The flipside of Bucky wanting to warn them to stay far back and not bother Loki while they left was that every one of them knew that it was going to happen and wanted to be in attendance. They spoke Loki's name, his real one, and he narrowed eyes on Bucky as they moved away.

"It's what you wanted, right?" Bucky asked, leading him steadily farther from the gathered kids.

Loki was silent for a long moment as he followed. "Thank you," he eventually said.

Bucky nodded, resisting the urge for a greater reaction at the small victory. 

Unfortunately, the feeling didn't last long before it was drowned out by something distinctly more anxious. Loki kept quiet as he moved forward, but the more they left behind the farm for open space, the greater his tension became to a worryingly obvious degree. 

They hadn't even made it a mile out before Loki faltered, his breath growing fast. "Wait," he said. "Wolf. A minute."

Bucky had already stopped, all of his attention too focused on Loki to miss the change. "Okay," he said, feeling his emotions ratchet up in exactly the damn way he'd been telling Loki he wanted to avoid. But he had a feeling anything like _I told you so_ would have the exact same affect as it'd had on Steve when he'd been sick before the serum. 

_Don't be a jackass,_ Bucky thought. _You wouldn't have forced him to stay in that hut against his will forever, anyway. Just fucking help him now._

"There's tree cover closer to the river," Bucky suggested, keeping his voice even. "Or we can head back. Whatever you prefer."

Loki clamped his eyes shut, swallowing convulsively and repeatedly. Then he opened his eyes, set his gaze ahead, and determinedly moved forward, towards the trees. His steps were quick, like what he really wanted to do was run, and Bucky had to up his pace to keep close.

Loki managed to push forward another two miles before he began to visibly sweat, even in the shade. When Bucky asked if he was too hot, all he got was a jagged head shake in response.

Bucky let them go for another mile before he couldn't take it anymore and suggested a stop at the river. Loki kept moving like he hadn't heard him.

"Loki," Bucky tried again. "Loki!"

Finally, Loki paused, his breaths too ragged in his chest. Bucky hurried around to the front of him and Loki flinched back, his pupils blown wide, hands raised as if to ward off attack.

 _Shit._ "Hey. You're good. Nothing's gonna happen."

Loki shook his head like he was uncomprehending. Bucky didn't want to touch him when he was like this in case he lashed out, but he didn't want to leave him trapped in his head.

"The river's right over here," Bucky said, trying for something familiar, hoping that Loki wouldn't bolt. "Let's sit down and take a break."

Loki jerkily nodded, his eyes too wide, and god, Bucky felt like an ass for letting him do this to himself. Despite Loki's fear and wariness, self-preservation was still depressingly low on his list of priorities.

There was a large rock on the shore. Loki took a seat there, his thumb working over the neighboring finger, the thousand-yard stare directed to the flowing river as shivers wracked him. Bucky sat beside him and offered some water. It was a few minutes before Loki noticed the bottle, a little awareness returning to his eyes. Long fingers closed around it and he took the water in heaving gulps.

He calmed down by inches, slumping until it looked like all he wanted to do was pitch forward onto the ground. Bucky rested his elbows on his knees and felt the swirling in his gut slowly begin to recede as Loki stopped shaking. He shook his head in refusal when Bucky offered food, probably still too stressed for hunger. At least he'd kept his breakfast down.

"So what do you want to do now?" Bucky carefully prompted. "We can stay here for a bit if you're not ready to go back."

"I think I miss it," Loki said in answer, his voice soft. He gave a bark of acrid laughter. "As if I didn't have weakness enough."

"What?" Bucky cautiously prodded. "The hut?"

"No." Loki bared his teeth, his eyes growing watery. "That - _hole_ in the ground. The choking silence. The dark. The unending sameness." He bent his head, eyes roving over the ground. His hands had begun to shake again, and he clenched them tightly together. "I disgust myself."

It _was_ horrible to hear, but fuck if Bucky didn't know what Loki meant, even if now he had enough distance to see the urge for what it was. 

(" _Wipe him._ ")

"Your mind is just trying to protect itself," Bucky said. "You were down there a long time."

Loki reached up and grasped a hand into his hair. "Time meant nothing. I would have eagerly screamed my own throat to ribbons and clawed out my own eyes if it meant I was allowed to escape for but a moment and _feel_ , to have some measure of my own existence beyond my useless thoughts. And now I yearn for that emptiness, as much as I fear it." He dropped his hand and stared at Bucky, his eyes glittering. "I am my mind. Therefore, I am the problem."

Nausea was beginning to lodge itself in Bucky's throat. "I can't blame you for thinking any of that."

Loki smiled bitterly. "Of course you cannot."

"I don't _agree_ with it, either. And just so you know...the only thing that's gonna stand out to me, right now, is that you got me out of the hut. Whether or not you did that to prove something to yourself, or me, or if it's something you'll think you'll regret - thanks. I did need this. Being outside. Seeing the sun." He waited a beat. "But I hate that you made yourself feel like shit to do it."

Loki raised his eyebrows. He peered cautiously at the sky before he dropped his eyes back down. "It had seemed a fair trade," he murmured. "Something this simple should hardly inspire such difficulty."

"Yeah...life's a real pain in the ass that way," Bucky said. He got to his feet, and held out his prosthetic. "Come on. Let's head back."

Loki looked at the extended hand like he didn't know what to do with it, and then he seemed to settle into grim reluctance. He reached up to grasp it, the gauntlets clacking metal on metal, as he allowed himself to be pulled up.

\------------

Loki paused when they were most of their way back to the farm. Bucky thought he was having problems again before he saw that the crease on his forehead wasn't from fear, but confusion. He raised a hand to his earbuds and removed them, holding up a hand for silence when Bucky tried to speak.

For an interminable moment, Bucky was on high alert for danger. 

"The people in your village are shouting," Loki said, eyebrows drawn low. "As if they are in distress."

Bucky felt his adrenaline rush and send his senses into a careful accuracy. He stretched his ears, but he didn't hear anything except chirping birds. He didn't doubt that Loki did, though. "Do you want to stay here while I go check it out?"

Loki shook his head. "There are no sounds of attack."

Bucky was only mildly reassured. "Can you run?"

Loki looked at him sharply. His face set and he gave a short nod.

Bucky bolted at full speed, his pack pounding against his back. Loki followed, long legs carrying him close as they sprinted the return distance. It wasn't long before the shouting reached Bucky's ears.

The tribe was wandering the land in visible search patterns, their calls echoing out into the air. Bucky stopped running a ways out, trying to take in what exactly was going on without getting in too close. Loki still hung back at the sight of that many people, some of the terror returning to his eyes. 

"I'll expand your radius," Bucky said, phantom itching running the length of his prosthetic. "They're not gonna hurt you. You should probably put your earbuds back in on high."

Loki forcibly clamped them back in, adjusted them, and immediately looked a little relieved. Bucky wandered in long strides the rest of the way across to where Anwuli was alternating calling out at the river and messing with her Kimoyo Beads. She looked frantic, her voice risen to a worrying pitch.

"Anwuli, what's going on?" Bucky asked as he approached. 

"Ndidi is gone," Anwuli said, her voice high and cracking. "The children say one of the goats ran and she gave chase. The goat returned, but she remains missing. She will not answer her Kimoyo Beads."

Bucky frowned. "Which way did the goat come back from?"

Anwuli indicated with a hand. "Some of the men are out looking in that direction."

Bucky nodded. "I'll go help."

"Thank you, White Wolf." She immediately began yelling her daughter's name again.

Bucky jogged back to Loki, gesturing to make sure he could hear. "Her daughter's gone. I'm gonna go out searching. Do you wanna head back to the hut?"

Loki shook his head.

"I'm gonna move fast," Bucky warned. "Your radius will be about two hundred yards."

"Go, Wolf," Loki ordered. "Find the child."

Bucky ran.

\-------------

They didn't come across any of the other people searching, but Bucky could hear their voices ring out in the trees around them. Footprints of all sizes littered the ground, and he had to strain to find what he thought were Ndidi's. They lead Bucky up the river, intersecting with goat tracks, further cementing the identity of their owner. The goat had stopped at a point, and circled the area, then gone back the way it had come.

Loki stood beside Bucky, pressed against a tree. His breathing was labored and most of the color had drained from his face. Bucky readied himself at any moment to change tack and give him a restricted radius to his current position and continue on looking without him. But Loki was alert, and responded with eye contact and a nod when Bucky checked in to see if he was still with him.

He went back to his search. 

Unlike the goat, Ndidi's footprints just stopped. They did not return the way they came, or keep going forward. He checked upwards, wondering if she'd climbed a tree, but the branches above him were bare. 

And there were people calling her name from all distances. She would have answered if she could. 

He scanned the area in a careful circle before coming back to the outermost footprint. "Her tracks stop here. Where the hell could she have gone?"

Loki came forward, his eyes roving over the marks that Bucky had examined. 

"These are deeper," Bucky said. "Like she dug her heels into the ground. But there's no sign of struggle or any matching human or animal tracks as recent as that."

Loki clenched his jaw. He knelt to one knee, and spread a pale hand over the ground. He irritably hushed Bucky when he tried to speak, and Bucky belatedly remembered him feeling over the prosthetic, his magic still able to sense even though it was trapped inside of him. 

Loki moved to his feet. He nodded westward. "Try that way."

The hope that sprung up in Bucky's chest surprised him. "How can you tell?"

Loki made a vague gesture with his palm flat and hovering parallel over the ground. "The earth in this land...the metal that these people favor infects every point of it. There is a disturbance in the energy in that direction, about the size of a young girl." Loki dropped his hand with a shrug, still breathing through his open mouth. "It could, of course, also be some other animal or object of proportionate dimension."

Bucky didn't have time to be amazed (but he was still amazed). He moved the way Loki had told him in a slow jog, scanning his eyes in a wide arc.

He found her.

Ndidi was on her back on the ground. Thankfully, there was no visible blood on her skin or clothes.

She was unconscious, her position too stiff for it to have been from sleep.

 _Fuck._

Bucky quickly knelt, checking Ndidi's vitals - the old fashioned way, and then with a Kimoyo Bead scan for a more in depth look at her vitals. She wasn't hurt, just out - which sent up an entirely new slew of questions. He double checked her brain for any signs of trauma, anything like the fallout from a seizure, but the beads reported back that she was in near perfect health.

He pulled her up with his metal arm, bracing it under her while with his other hand he called Anwuli. 

"I found her," he said when she answered. "Well, Loki did."

Anwuli screeched in joy. Across from him, Loki gave a resulting flinch. "Is she all right?" Anwuli asked.

Bucky nodded. "She looks good. A little bruised, but no major injuries. She passed out somehow. Send the word out for the others to come in - I'll be back with her soon."

"Bast bless you, White Wolf. And Loki as well."

Bucky lowered his hand and gave the area one last long look, not liking the limited explanation for her disappearance, or the fact that she hadn't been found by any of the others, even though he could see tracks from the adults on the ground close to where her body had been.

He shook his head and beckoned to Loki. "Come on."

\-------------

He gave Loki a larger radius again when they got back. Loki took advantage of it and stayed in the treeline half hidden while the tribe took Ndidi from Bucky, their smiles bright and their words excited. Some of them called out thanks to towards the trees, but if Loki had a reaction to that, Bucky couldn't see it from this distance.

He went back to him after, resisting the urge for a clap on the shoulder that Loki probably wouldn't appreciate. "Thank you," Bucky said.

Loki looked vaguely uncomfortable. "They would have found her eventually. I simply could not imagine enduring their cries for an entire day."

Bucky couldn't help the ribbing that followed. "Says the guy with noise-cancelling earbuds."

Loki lashed out, and Bucky moved his prosthetic up to deflect only to have it clamped in Loki's incredibly strong grip, which pulled him so they'd be out of sight. Then Loki pushed him back, trapping him against a tree. His expression didn't so much as twitch, a quiet rage overtaking him as he efficiently pinned Bucky in place. "Do you think me tamed?"

Bucky stared up into that cold stare, mind racing through counter moves ( _sweep his legs out, use your free hand to punch him in the throat, box his ears and scream to incite his hyperacusis_ ), all of which he discarded because dammit, this song and dance was familiar enough by now that he knew that was what Loki _wanted_. "That hard to take a compliment, huh?"

Loki smirked, seeking out Bucky's other wrist and pressing his grip hard into the radial artery. "I can feel your blood pound, Wolf. Do not try for flippancy when you so clearly have fear in your heart." There was a smugness to his words, like he'd just won some type of victory.

Bucky tightened up, frustrated anger making his teeth ache. The plates in the arm shifted and Loki strengthened his hold in anticipation. Bucky modified his tone into calm. "The only thing I'm afraid of right now," he said, "is that you're going to do something stupid to hurt yourself just to prove a goddamn point."

Loki leaned closer, his breath as he exhaled lacking the warmth that would come from a human. He didn't let go. "But you do not fight me to prevent it."

Bucky stared back. "You're a lot stronger than me."

Loki's lips stretched wider in pleased amusement. "An obvious observation."

Bucky clenched his hands into fists. "If you're trying to get me to attack you, you're gonna be really fucking disappointed." 

"I could have sent you searching for the child in the incorrect direction. Claimed weakness so you would leave me where I stood, and then I could have dragged her unconscious body into the river and left her to drown. By my estimate, such an action would have not triggered the stasis."

"Loki!" Bucky did jerk against his grip then, finally fed up, but Loki just crowded closer him, pressing their chests together.

"Fight back," Loki demanded.

"I don't have to," Bucky snapped, straining to squirm away so he'd have some fucking space to breathe. "I can just drop you with the goddamn beads."

Loki's eye twitched, but the rest of his expression remained unchanged. Feral. "Follow through. As you said, words are nothing to me."

Bucky stopped pulling against Loki's hold. He panted. "Earlier today you asked me why I was so accommodating. Why are you still so fucking scared of people being nice to you?"

Loki blinked, his expression wavering. Then his eyes creased at the edges. "Do not think that because you have been my warden for a handful of weeks that you have any insight into my true nature."

"Your fucking _nature_ helped to save that little girl's life. No one expected you to. If you really did that just so you could have an excuse to be an asshole to me about it afterwards, have at it." Bucky went demonstratively still under Loki's hands, even as his thoughts clamored for him to do anything in defense. "I'll stand here and take it. I'd say that's a - what did you call it? A _fair trade_."

Loki's expression blanked. He released his hold on Bucky like he'd been burned, backing away a few steps. The anger remained, quiet and low. "There was nothing softhearted in my actions."

Bucky raised a hand to push his hair back out of his face, then rolled the kinks out of his shoulders. He shook his head. "You really don't need to do whatever this is."

Loki kept going with that same intensity as if he hadn't heard him. "These people are my jailers. Their children will grow to be my future jailers. And I will remain, imprisoned, long after you are dust."

Bucky flexed his hands, stepping away from the tree. "Would it really make it better if they treated you like shit in the process?"

"It is not a question of would," Loki said insistently. "Rather an inevitability."

"It's not gonna happen," Bucky said, just as adamant. "You're thinking way too far ahead again. All that matters right now is that you helped me find Ndidi. I'm really sorry you had to take that so damn hard."

Loki exhaled through his nose and his expression cracked, his eyes going red with furious tears. He suddenly looked like he was about to faint, his hands trembling, but his expression immediately turned to stone as he struggled against it. The glistening in his eyes still gave him away.

"I don't get this," Bucky said, thick resignation filling him. "But even if you're gonna keep fighting it, I'm not gonna suddenly change my mind. Loki, you have to fucking _know_ that by now."

"Know?" Loki laughed, a wild edge that signaled danger a lot more than his physical posturing. He took a step back towards Bucky. "What I _know_ changes from minute to minute. You have all of the patience, Wolf. Patience that I lack. You could easily be simply waiting."

"I'm not waiting for anything," Bucky said. "Most days I don't even think about what is going to come the next morning. I just get through each damn moment as best I can." He matched Loki's step forward. "You're dangerous. You hate most people. So fucking what. You're doing better than _I_ ever could in your position."

"You," Loki repeated with a twist of his lips. "The way you tell it you became an ally to these people as soon as look at them."

"When I got out of the hellhole I was stuck in, I went deep into hiding. It took _months_ before I could unscramble my damn head enough to do any sort of regular normal social interaction. And I sure as hell didn't try to save anyone's life but my own." And Bucky didn't want to do this, didn't want to go down the days after the Potomac when his world had been upended, the fear and confusion and _rage_. He'd killed a lot of Hydra agents after the fact, remembered the fear in the eyes of the ones who saw their death coming for them, the smell of blood and the sounds of their screams.

His prosthetic reacted to the memory, the surge of bloodlust. He almost felt like he could feel the energy contained within it.

"I'm not waiting," Bucky repeated. He met Loki's eyes. "This is what it is."

Some of the fury left Loki's expression; something else replaced it. He took another step towards Bucky, his mouth open like he wanted to say more, but then he closed it and looked away. "Perhaps," he said, in a way that made Bucky think he didn't mean it.

"Loki," Bucky started, but then he heard footsteps approaching. He forcibly relaxed, changing his posture as he rounded the tree to see some of the kids running over. 

Loki immediately backed up in quick steps, looking hunted. He curled his nails into the metal of the gauntlets.

Bucky tried to shake off the last of his tension as he walked out to meet them. 

One of the older kids, just shy of his teens, pulled up breathless. "Ingucka! Ndidi is waking. Anwuli says you may see her. And Loki also, if he wishes."

"Go. I'll be there soon." Bucky felt some of his tension return as they raced off. He looked at Loki, already knowing a visit to Anwuli's hut, where a large number of the tribe was undoubtedly gathered, was an invitation he would outright refuse. "Assuming you don't want to come to that."

Loki kept his gaze off to the side, his hands clenched in distress. He shook his head.

"Then go to my hut," Bucky ordered. "I promise I'll be back in a minute, and then we can finish this."

In the absence of it Bucky could feel that his head was pounding from the heightened emotion from their argument, but he ignored the hurt and moved quickly to Anwuli's home. The tribe parted so he'd have easy access to go in. Anwuli was surrounded by some of the older women who were tending to Ndidi with herbal medicines, their scent fragrant and sharp and earthy in the small space. The hut was so filled to capacity that Bucky could barely find a spot inside it, his heart thudding at the closeness of bodies.

Ndidi was groggy but awake. She looked frightened, was whispering something urgently to her mother. Anwuli spoke back in soothing tones.

Ndidi shook her mother away and began to babble in Xhosa, so fast and low that Bucky almost didn't catch some of the words, but those he did made his blood run cold.

She said she hadn't fallen and hit her head after chasing the goat, hadn't had a seizure or anything like that.

"What did you see?" Bucky asked.

"A man," Ndidi responded in English, eyes rounded wide. "A white man that was not a man."

Bucky felt the first stirrings of red. He went calm and still. "What did he do?"

"He made me sleep."

Anwuli's expression pinched in doubt. "The Border Tribe gave no notice of any white men entering Wakanda," Anwuli said. "You were dreaming."

Ndidi shook her head vigorously in denial, but her mom still obviously didn't believe her.

"I didn't see any other tracks," Bucky said, and then his thoughts violently went back to the shadow from the night before. There'd been no trace of anything then, either. "I'll go looking," he promised Ndidi, then spoke it again in Xhosa for emphasis.

Ndidi gave a shaky nod.

"See?" Anwuli stroked her daughter's forehead. "The White Wolf will scare off the monsters."

Anwuli thought he'd only said what he did to indulge her daughter. Bucky nodded with a reassuring smile when their gazes turned on him.

The expression immediately slipped from his face when he exited back out of the hut into the open air, quickly separating himself from the relieved gathering.

 _Compartmentalize,_ he thought. _Don't just go running after the bogeyman. Go to Loki first, like you told him you would._

He jogged back to his hut, trying to figure out how best to phrase this new development, knowing it was likely he was going to get it wrong, but also knowing that wasn't going to be a deterrent.

He crossed the cloth barrier, the words he would have said fading from his lips in shocked confusion. In the center of Loki's bed, his earbuds rested haphazardly on the disarranged sheet. The wooden caracal the kids had made him had fallen to the floor in front of it, broken into jagged halves, splinters protruding from its small form. It had been shattered in an inhumanly strong grip.

Loki was gone.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeeyyyy! This is the planned penultimate chapter to this fic, and it's about 8,400 words. There will be one more chapter after this. 
> 
> I do have a sequel planned.
> 
> Next chapter will be up **Saturday, March 9th.**
> 
> Warnings in this chapter for, you know, the usual.

"I have sent notice to all of our warriors," King T'Challa said, standing inside the door the hut while Bucky shrugged on a dark blue vest with vibranium microweave in the fibers. "The Border Tribe has strengthened their defenses. No one will enter or leave Wakanda until we locate Loki."

General Okoye had knelt next to Loki's bed and was examining every inch of it, scanning for traces of anything that would point to where he'd gone. If she had any judgment for Bucky's failing in his duty, she kept it to herself. 

Bucky pulled the knife from the wall of the hut, wiping it clean with a cloth. "They're not gonna find him."

General Okoye frowned as she rose. "He could not have simply disappeared into thin air."

"Yeah, he could." Bucky grabbed his whetstone from his belongings, wetting it with a bit of oil. He had already pocketed Loki's earbuds, but the broken caracal figurine was resting where it had fallen, legs jutting out, its pale face directed his way. He carefully turned so he couldn't see it while he worked.

T'Challa was watching him move with an expression of almost concern. "What would you suggest?"

Bucky sighed, stopping his prep work and staring at the wall of the hut. "I might have an idea of where he is."

T'Challa frowned. "Did Loki indicate to you where he would run to?"

Bucky ground his teeth. He quickly angled his blade over the whetstone, pushing it against the lubricated surface. "He didn't run," he said, eyes on his task. "He was taken."

"By whom?" General Okoye asked, her tone inflexible in its demand for answers. "For what purpose?"

"I don't know." Bucky flipped the knife and began to work the other side, trying not to think about how much time had been wasted already. "It's my fault. I thought something was wrong but I kept ignoring my instincts."

Shuri's voice sounded on T'Challa's Kimoyo Beads. "Brother, preliminary scans over Wakanda show no signs of any signal from the Gauntlet Stabilizers or Loki's power."

Bucky wiped off the knife and slid it into its sheath. "You brought my gun?"

T'Challa nodded. "Outside."

Bucky ducked out of the hut and one of T'Challa's men handed over the light machine gun Bucky had taken from the Quinjet when he'd escaped with Steve to Siberia. He checked the weapon over, attached a casket magazine, then paused as he noticed several members of the tribe were gathered and watching him, including Anwuli and Ndidi. They were still and silent.

"I do not understand," T'Challa said.

Bucky turned his back on his audience, ignoring the new tightness in his chest. He nodded towards T'Challa's Kimoyo Beads. "Shuri knows."

"If he is still in Wakanda at all," Shuri said, "there is only one place Loki would be located without showing up on our scans."

"The laboratory that contained him," General Okoye surmised. "We will gather warriors there immediately."

"No," Bucky said, conviction driving his denial. "Whatever this is, it's powerful. Somehow it knows what's going on. It can leave a spot in an instant and without a trace." _This is my mess,_ he thought. _I'm the one that needs to clean it up._

General Okoye narrowed her eyes. "What is your plan?"

"Keep your warriors on standby. I'll go in alone and see if I can take out the threat before it knows I'm coming."

The sound of Shuri scoffing was loud and clear through T'Challa's beads. "You are serious? We have _stealth_ aircrafts that do not require us to be physically present to pilot them. You've seen my brother's Black Panther suit, right? It is made of vibranium _and_ completely covers every vulnerability, Mr. I-require-an-exposed-head-and-free-flowing-hair-to-engage-in-combat."

"I thought I told you to call me Bucky," Bucky replied. He spoke to T'Challa. "Stay nearby as backup. I'll deactivate Loki's gauntlets as soon as I'm in range. He'll help me take out whatever this is."

"How can you be so certain," General Okoye said. "He is not dying any longer. There would be no incentive to keep him from turning and attacking us."

"He won't attack us," Bucky insisted. _If he's not completely out of his mind with a panic attack, that is._ He breathed out through the anger that stirred at the image. "I wouldn't say no to an explosive or two, if you have any to spare."

T'Challa went deep into thought for a long moment. He glanced at General Okoye. "Loki has so far been willing to cooperate with the White Wolf. He may not be as trusting of our warriors." He stepped close to one of his men and was handed a pair of palm-sized silver spheres. He brought them over to Bucky, dropping them into his open hand. "Where would you like us to drop you off?"

\-----------

Bucky clutched his gun close as he followed his past steps through the already trampled stalks of plume grass that bordered the elevator to the lab. He kept his movements careful in spite of the stealth tech Shuri had insisted be placed in his boots. A low breeze ruffled his hair, carrying with it the freshwater scent of Warrior Falls. The sun was setting, the sky painted with pink and orange, edging into lines of deep red.

He stopped outside of the elevator platform, taking a deep breath as he readied himself. A ball of vibranium came loose from his belt into his hand. He triggered the detonating mechanism, throwing it onto the metal surface where it magnetized in place before bursting with a loud blast of heat. His metal arm raised to block the oncoming shrapnel as he charged forward and leapt down through the resulting hole, landing in a roll at the bottom and coming up with his gun ready to fire.

Loki was there. Not just there, but bound in the wall, metal hoops enclosed over his limbs and torso, his face frozen and terrified. As he had been weeks before when Bucky and Shuri had first uncovered him. 

The lights of the cube beamed brightly around him, inexorable in their creation of a living, suffering statue.

Someone was standing in front of Loki, their back to Bucky. A man with white hair, in grandiose armor and a long red cape, jagged shapes like horns curving up from his helmet. He carried a long spear of brilliantly bright gold.

_"A man who is not a man."_

Bucky opened fire, but every single damn bullet hit some sort of rippling golden shield and then fell harmlessly to the floor. He paused in shooting and unlatched and threw his remaining explosive. The blast echoed in the small space of the lab, the combustion blackening the floor. But there was no damage to his target - not even a lock of hair fallen out of place.

The old man spoke, his voice imperious, filling the lab. "This interruption is not appreciated." He slowly turned and locked a single blue eye onto Bucky; the other was covered with a golden patch.

He noted the weakness immediately, but taking advantage of it would be useless with an impenetrable shield in place.

Bucky glanced at Loki, trapped in stasis by the cruder stabilizing field in the wall, the restraints in place that would be burning into his skin. His face was still wet from the tears he must have shed as he was forced back into stillness.

Bucky dropped his gun, and let the red seep into his mind.

The old man raised his spear.

Bucky pulled his metal arm back, felt for the traces of Loki's energy stored within it. He launched up and ran towards his target as the spear cracked against the floor with a noise like the roar of a fighter jet.

The floor between them split over the lines of damage created by the explosive, the earth beneath the metal opening up like a gaping maw. 

Bucky used his momentum to take himself into a running leap over the gap, lashing forward at violent speed and strength.

There was a flash of light as the prosthetic crossed the golden shield. He hit flesh that felt as dense as tank armor, felt the resistance all the way through his spine, and then an explosion of green erupted outwards from his fist. 

The man went flying through the wall and into earth, farther and farther, until he was out of sight.

Bucky stood where he was, eyes wide as he stared through the open tunnel, prosthetic still tingling in the aftermath. Dirt crumbled and filled the hole, caving in and sliding onto the vibranium floor of the lab.

His arm was completely drained of Loki's energy. 

_Loki._

Bucky raced over to the wall, sliding to his knees, and immediately began to bash the prosthetic violently against what lights he could reach. Their glass shattered and sparked, building up in his limb as it drew in the energy they bursted out. Loki began to twitch as their press on him was relieved.

Bucky had to crawl into the cube fully to reach what he could, breaking and smashing until Loki was freed enough to begin visibly squirming, his breath coming in strained gasps as he struggled to speak through the combined restraint forces bearing down on him.

"Wolf," he croaked, eyes streaming.

"Yeah. Hi." Bucky deactivated the gauntlets, retracting them into the wrist cuffs.

Loki could suddenly breathe easier. His wild gaze locked on the destruction in the wall, before he stared at Bucky, tense and fearful. 

"The bonds," he said, jerking his limbs against the unyielding restraints. "Remove them. I will do whatever you require, only-"

"Loki," Bucky said, breaking off the quick words. "You don't need to promise anything. It's why I'm here." Bucky moved forward until their bodies were pressed together so he could reach the furthermost lights. "He somehow took control of the entire goddamn lab. I have to break the rest of these to get you out."

Loki gave a jerky nod that Bucky felt against his cheek. "Yes. Hurry."

Bucky tried releasing the stabilizing energy in his hand towards the last bits of glass encasing the lights, but without any contact the energy stubbornly stayed in his limb. 

_Not gonna work, try something else,_ he thought. _Fast._

He clamped his hand over one of the lines of metal to Loki's neck restraint, bracing and heaving into a pull against it. It wouldn't break, so he tried to use the stabilizing energy in his arm to overload and weaken it.

Loki immediately arched and howled, his skin rapidly blistering around the attached hoop. 

"Fuck!" Bucky quickly pulled back, and Loki stilled, gasping and tense with new pain. "Damn it. Sorry." Bucky punched at the bar in frustration. "I'm not gonna be able to get all of the lights if I can't get you out of these, or at least break some loose." He pulled back, staring into Loki's eyes. "You're gonna have to meet me halfway."

Loki immediately began to visibly strain, teeth bared on a snarl and green lights half-forming and fading in the air around him, the tendons in his neck standing out in sharp relief against mottled red skin over the metal clamped around his neck.

Then he went limp, grinding his teeth. Still trapped. "I am afraid I am stuck," he said between pants, voice falling into hopeless frustration. "There are still too many containment devices."

There was a noise, a deep rumbling that shook the entire lab, the sound like a fighter jet starting up again, approaching fast. Loki growled and twisted, trying for his power again before he stilled with a sound that was too much like a whimper. "It is too late. We cannot..." He trailed off, blinking, and a fresh tear escaped to course over a pale cheek, his voice going so quiet that Bucky had to strain to hear. "I should have asked you to kill me."

"No, you shouldn't have." Bucky felt a swell of irritated desperation. "And how 'bout you let me decide what I can and can't do." He didn't turn to look as dirt blasted and rained down against them, his mind racing. "Okay. Hang on." He pressed up against Loki's shuddering form as he threaded the prosthetic around the restraints. He felt around and managed to rip his fingers into another light. Loki's heart pounded against his ear. He found one more, felt the satisfaction of another crunch in his grasp.

"Nearly there," Loki urged him in a whisper, jaw clenched as green lights stirred beneath his skin. "I can - ah! Almost access it."

"Having a hell of a time reaching these," Bucky said, straining harder against Loki's unyielding frame to blindly search for the final lights at the farthest point behind him. The fingers of his prosthetic barely brushed their surfaces. 

He was internally cursing that fact and about to try a different angle when there was a slam, and suddenly everything was a lot darker.

Bucky had a second to think that maybe the power in the rest of the entire lab had gone out, but Loki immediately began to squirm and panic, filling the cube with the sounds of his frantic breaths. His voice came out in a trembling roar, blasting Bucky's ears. "No, no, no - you _coward_!"

Bucky felt his own body seize in dread, his throat closing up. He tried to back out of the cube and slammed the back of his head and shoulders into metal, confirmation for the growing terror that made him feel colder than cryo.

They'd been closed in.

In the remaining lights Bucky could see something begin to crawl out from the wall and over Loki's restraints. Nanites.

_No. God, no._

Heart thundering, his mind shrieking against the enclosed space until he felt almost nothing but the urge to beat the walls in useless animal panic, Bucky managed to just cling to his focus as he desperately reached again for the last lights. The nanites gripped over Loki's shoulder and then washed over Bucky's right arm, solidifying into an unyielding casing that pinned them together.

He felt a forehead press against his shoulder as metal moved like fluid and crept up Loki's neck and jaw. 

Loki's voice broke over Bucky's fear. "I am sorry, Wolf." The nanites covered his face and head, forcing him into complete buried stillness.

"Shit, Loki." Bucky had maybe a few seconds before the same happened to him. He took a deep breath before the nanites crawled over his mouth and nose, and then in a surge of frenzied last-ditch terror, pulled his knife free of its sheath and stabbed blindly forward. 

Everything went black, metal creeping until it gripped over every expanse of him. Bucky couldn't move. He couldn't _breathe_ , air passages blocked up by vibranium. He tried to scream, but it was locked in his throat, the gasping breath he would have taken after brutally stoppered. His lungs spasmed futilely in his chest as his mind was overtaken by terror, his prosthetic overwhelmed by commands that it could not follow, the energy stored crackling uselessly against its containment.

He was going to die. There was no way to fight it. Slowly, by minutes, as his body was starved of oxygen. 

He felt a vibration.

The nanites ripped from him in an explosion, his prosthetic warning him of overload, pain tearing away his skin in bloodied patches. He barely registered the feeling as took in a whooping breath, his chest burning, his every thought devoted to pulling in air. When he had recovered enough to look up, he saw his own dazed horror mirrored on Loki's face. 

The air was filled with green firefly lights. 

The restraints were still in place, but Loki's energy was lashing free around them.

 _Thank fuck,_ Bucky thought. He felt his body go limp, warm blood sliding down from dozens of gouges in his skin, soaking into his clothes. 

For a moment Loki looked like he was going into shock, but then his face transitioned into raw fury, eyes gleaming with moisture. The air vibrated again to match him as his power geared up. "Are your defenses active?"

Bucky was still drifting in a haze of _fuck, thank fuck, how the hell am I alive._ "What?"

"Your _beads,_ Wolf. That keep you guarded against my magic."

Bucky shakily checked. "Yeah."

"Then stay where you are."

Loki shut his eyes, clenched his jaw, and shouted as the walls blasted out from around them in a green swirling storm that sent the rubble flying in a spiral tornado. Their surroundings shook and shattered and crumbled to dust, wider and wider, until Bucky could see the night sky, the fresh air around them carrying with it the smell of newly excavated earth.

When Loki was done, every piece of the lab had been destroyed, reduced to particles that fell to the ground around them like sand. All that remained was a giant crater that sloped up from the earth. Loki's bonds had fallen against him in the absence of walls to hold them, but they still hung from his body, gripped tightly to his skin, the metal blocking its own destruction with the last remaining form of the old stabilizing energy.

The white-haired man in armor was standing at the top of the crater, staring down at them. He wasn't trying to run or attack. Loki locked his gaze onto him, his face spasming in rage. His hand sought out the Stabilizing Beads on Bucky's wrist.

Bucky pulled his hand back. "What are you doing?"

Loki hissed. "I cannot take you with me if you are wearing these."

"Okay. How about instead of destroying them, you let me _take them off_."

"Be quick," Loki hissed, hands digging into Bucky's sides through his vest. 

Bucky exhaled and pulled the Stabilizing Beads off his wrist, pocketing them. But instead of teleporting them away from danger, Loki brought them right in front of it, to a cold-eyed stare. Bucky lurched up in readiness, Loki unfurling to stand beside him.

The old man's helmet was gone. He had a large bloodied patch on his cheek where Bucky had hit him, and purple-red bruising was spreading down the side of his face. He still had clumps of dirt in his hair and beard, and smeared over the shine of his armor. Only his spear stood golden and clean. 

"Loki," he said, "it was not my intent to kill you. Or this man."

Loki looked positively livid, uncontrollable, and it sent Bucky's already raw nerves into another set of futile warnings. "You would have simply kept me locked up forever, as you intended. Tell me, Allfather, are you frightened of the power I wield? You should have done what you have always done and sent Thor in your place. I could _kill you with a thought._ "

_Allfather?_

"Thor is currently occupied with ensuring peace across the realms." The old man didn't look in the least intimidated by Loki's threat. "And you could attempt to kill me. But it would be a waste of power. I am already dying."

Loki stilled, eyes widening in shock.

The old man went on. "Once I was sure you were secured here I would have released this human and taken him back to his home. Then I would have worked with the people here to strip you of your enhancements, and taken you to yours."

Anger edged against Loki's confusion. "To Asgard, to rot in the dungeons."

"You would have stayed there for a time, yes. But not for as long as you might think. There is more coming, my son, a power much greater than this grudge you hold."

Bucky frowned. _Son?_ He felt like there was something there, something he might have forgotten, just out of reach.

Loki laughed, low and angry. "It would stand to reason then that I should prevent you from weakening me at all costs, would it not?" He tightened his hands at his sides, and knives solidified into being in his grasp. "No. You will not convince me that you have come for anything more than revenge, and now that you have discovered it is beyond your reach to take by force, you employ a different tactic."

Bucky breathed out, taking in Loki's physical weapons at the same time he realized fully that this was the second encounter in so many weeks with an enemy who held a personal vendetta against him. 

_This is what you signed up for, pal._

He knew that. He'd known that. He wasn't backing out now.

But he sent out a message with his Kimoyo Beads, just in case. "Loki, stand down," he said, voice a lot steadier than he felt.

Loki turned on him in disbelief. "Why on earth would I do that?"

Bucky pointed upwards. "Help's incoming. Keep your position, but don't attack." 

Loki didn't respond, but Bucky could see his jaw clenched around the protest he was about to form.

"Don't attack," Bucky repeated, letting firmness into his tone.

Loki clenched his eyes shut. The wounds on his neck were ugly, the raw flesh looking like it had to hurt a whole hell of a lot, especially with the metal still clamped over parts of it. "As you wish."

Seconds later an airship sounded and seeped into visibility far above their heads. T'Challa leapt from it, landing in a crouch in full Black Panther armor. General Okoye came down beside him a moment later, followed by several of the Dora Milaje.

"You are trespassing in Wakanda," T'Challa said, stepping forward.

The old man turned to his new challengers, but he didn't go on the offensive. "I have only come to reclaim the criminal in your midst. He escaped from Asgard before the full run of his sentence was carried out. If you would restrain him for me, please."

"Don't," Bucky said, bristling at the tone change. "He's powerful. Loki's the only thing stopping him from just taking what he wants."

"I have entrusted this man to have charge over Loki," T'Challa said, the Black Panther helmet betraying nothing of his emotions. "I cannot ignore his words."

"Charge?" And now there was something angry in the old man's eyes, a deep power - all of it focused on Bucky. "What is your name?"

Bucky glanced at Loki for some sort of signal, a hint for how this was supposed to go. But Loki was silent, staring forward, his eyes intense and wavering between sets of emotions. His hands had gone white-knuckled as they gripped his knives, shoulders heaving with his breaths.

Bucky felt spite towards the old man fill him. It made him reckless. "My name is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes," he said. Loki turned his head to him with narrowed eyes, before the entire scope of his attention was drawn back like a gravitational pull. "What's yours?" Bucky added.

The man raised his chin, somehow still looking like regality incarnate despite the swelling and color of the injury on his face. "Odin Allfather. King of Asgard. Protector of the Nine Realms."

 _That's a mouthful,_ Bucky thought, mostly because he could tell the guy was trying to use his title for some sort of intimidation. As if anything could be more intimidating than the horrific death he'd nearly damned Bucky to experience, entombed alive in the dark.

_Don't fucking think about that now. Focus._

Odin spoke. "What is your intention concerning the prisoner?"

This fucking question again, only this wasn't curiosity and care like it had been back when T'Challa asked him something similar. The words were weighted.

"It's personal," Bucky said, not really comfortable with this stranger knowing the ins and outs of the situation.

"If you would humor me," Odin said. "You hold my son's life in your hands."

Back to "son" again. Was this genuine emotion or bullshit manipulation tactics?

Fuck, he'd been hanging around Loki too much.

Loki's hands twitched against his sides, wrinkles forming between his eyebrows. Even the firefly lights around him had gone sedate, as if they didn't want to miss the conversation.

"Mostly just trying to get him to take things day by day," Bucky said.

"You care for him."

Bucky's throat tightened. He suddenly felt the full weight of the eyes of everyone present. "Yeah," he answered.

"That is what I thought." Odin turned to the others gathered. "You who have gathered obviously have no knowledge of my importance, but you must be aware of what the criminal did when he attacked this world. The lives lost. The humans he enthralled to do his bidding."

There it was. 

Bucky felt the words like a gut punch. He'd known the information from reports of the event - had always known. He'd just been stubbornly ignoring it, but that didn't mean it made hearing it any easier.

Loki had used mind control on people to further his agenda of war. 

Bucky only just barely resisted the urge to fall headfirst into the feelings that Odin was clearly trying to manipulate into being, hating himself for even somewhat doubting his position here, for the sour feeling that entered the back of his throat, the ratcheting of tension that felt like the countdown of his old trigger words.

"What are you implying?" T'Challa asked, his tone warning.

Odin turned to the King of Wakanda fully, now completely ignoring Loki and Bucky. "Let us speak frankly, as kings. As I did with your father when I spoke with him." 

T'Challa paused. His helmet slid back into its necklace. "You met with my father. Concerning Loki?"

"I did. He was a sensible ruler, with good instincts."

Loki went absolutely rigid. His chest expanded as he sucked in turbulent breaths through his teeth. The firefly lights were beginning to grow erratic. 

The distance that Bucky had been wanting to put between them faded into the background of his thoughts as he saw the crumbling of composure. Loki was going to lose it at any moment. General Okoye was watching him, but Bucky sharply shook his head to stop her when she reached for her Stabilizing Beads. 

He pushed his prosthetic against Loki's hand and felt him grip into it with frenzied intensity, some of his attention drifting to Bucky.

Odin waved his spear in their direction. "I would have concern for this man's mind, that he allows the prisoner such free use of his power. Loki is a master manipulator, and his lies and deceit have caused great ruin and harm throughout many realms."

Loki made a choked noise, his hand curling harder against the prosthetic. He stared at Odin like he was frozen in place.

T'Challa did not say anything for a long moment. "Then, also speaking frankly, I think it would be for the best if you were to leave. Immediately." The words were absolute, and dismissive.

The King of Asgard went from calm to pissed in an instant. He didn't attack, but Bucky had the feeling that if he did, he could have swatted them all like flies. Hell, he probably could have just made them sleep like he had Ndidi.

Loki was the only thing stopping him.

Odin gripped his spear tighter. "Think carefully before you perform this error."

"I have," T'Challa said. "You entered Wakanda and attacked a child. You will be allowed to leave for the simple reason that she was unharmed. But come here again and we will use whatever force is necessary to defend ourselves."

"Got my arm all recharged if you want to go again," Bucky remarked, happy to pitch in with a threat.

Loki blinked rapidly, his eyes finally fully moving to Bucky and staying there.

Odin stood deathly still. Bucky waited in lingering tension for him to try something else, to go back on the offensive. But he just looked over each of them. "Very well," he said. He slammed his spear into the ground, and then he disappeared.

\-----------

In the aftermath, Loki bowed his head, breathing heavily. The green firefly lights floated lazily around him. His knives were gone - faded out of existence, or put somewhere. Bucky could feel Loki's shudders through the prosthetic.

"Is he gone?" The question came from King T'Challa.

"I don't know," Bucky answered, his depleting adrenaline drawing his focus back to his exhaustion and the pain of the cuts that stung his skin.

Loki closed his eyes and began murmuring under his breath. Bucky thought it was another reaction to the extreme stress when the firefly lights burst off in a wave, an expanding ring of green that raced over the land at blinding speed. 

Bucky gripped into Loki's arm as he felt him start to falter. "What the hell did you do?"

Loki gasped and bent double, until Bucky had to steady himself to keep him up. "A locator spell," Loki said between breaths. "Normally the employment of it would require much more time and diligence, but it seems I have an...overabundance of energy."

Bucky eyed him dubiously. "So why do you look like you're about to pass out?"

"It...gave me a rather intimate detailing of just how wide and open the land is," Loki said, teeth clenched. "He is not here...not within the range of the country, at any rate." His legs began to wobble. 

Bucky wrapped his other arm around Loki's side to keep him up, something that he noted was a lot easier to do now that he could actually touch Loki without hurting him - sort of. Loki's skin under the tunic had to be wrecked from the stabilizing energy.

As if in response to Bucky's thoughts Loki suddenly flinched and hissed through his teeth, his power fading away. He brought up his hands, to the gauntlets that fully bound him once again, rings in place over his fingers. He directed a tired gaze to General Okoye.

She stood with her hand over her Stabilizing Beads, expression unapologetic.

"We should have you checked over," T'Challa said. "Loki, if you would be willing to give an explanation of what happened..."

"I was taken. Bound." Loki shook his head, keeping his eyes averted. "There was not much more to it."

T'Challa didn't look like he believed him. Bucky didn't either, but Loki had obviously not been expecting something like this event, and Odin was very clearly not on his side.

When the airship landed, Loki kept his steps slow, reluctant to board it. But he followed Bucky's guidance up the ramp, settling beside him on the floor in the furthest corner so they'd have some distance from the Dora and the king.

The metal gripping into Loki's body made any position besides standing and kneeling a distinct impossibility, but Loki was well used to being on his knees.

"He will return," Loki said, sometime after the airship had taken flight.

"I wouldn't be surprised." Bucky flexed the fingers of his prosthetic, trying to stimulate his brain with sensation to chase away some of the fatigue. "Did he tell you what the hell he actually wanted?"

"Evidently my first unimpeded usage of my magic alerted him to my release," Loki said, and Bucky noted the ease with which he gave detailed information to him that he'd held back from T'Challa. "I can only imagine he was worried that I would return to old habits."

Bucky didn't even consider asking what those old habits were. He could guess. "He said he knew about Wakanda."

"Yes. He'd known my exact location all along, and simply found it easier to leave me there, my will contained, until he was forced to intervene." Loki shrugged up a shoulder, his eyes filled with angry tears. "He took precautions with our interaction, even though what spirit I might have had was crushed to a paltry thing."

Bucky remembered Loki freezing and going quiet under Odin's dismissal. But he also remembered the feel of roaring power as metal and earth were blasted apart. "Didn't seem all that crushed to me," Bucky said.

Loki eyed him, something flashing in his gaze. "I should have torn him apart when I had the chance."

"Right there with you," Bucky said. "And thanks. I thought I was dead."

"He does not take well to being defied," Loki said. "His initial plan, since you are only one man, had been to simply take me without your notice."

Bucky frowned. "He showed up at the hut the other night. I woke up and there was a shadow on the door."

Loki's expression slid into mild amusement. "You were, in his words, 'frustratingly vigilant.' He was driven to other measures." Loki's eyes filled with some sort of delayed shock. "You attacked him. You _injured_ him."

Bucky shrugged. "It was your power. Anyway, he said he was dying."

"It means little." Loki lowered his gaze. "I have my suspicions that he has been dying for the last century or so."

" _Century?_ " Bucky drew his head black, taking in Loki's face a little more carefully, the smooth and unblemished skin clinging to the sharp line of his jaw. "How old are you, exactly?"

Loki quirked an eyebrow. "Over a thousand years."

"You're the fucking real deal," Bucky said, feeling like something he'd forgotten was suddenly sliding into place. "So when I mentioned I was a hundred..."

Loki gave a huff of laughter. "Hardly a register on the lifespan of a god."

"Wow. That's...wow."

"Eloquently stated," Loki deadpanned.

"Well, we know he's out there, now. If he tries to come back to Wakanda, he's gonna have a bad time. And I don't think he can really stick to that whole Protector of the Nine Realms schtick if he attacks an innocent country."

Loki's eyelids fluttered. He frowned, his gaze going to T'Challa and General Okoye where they stood near the windows to the airship. "They were in earnest."

"Starting to actually believe it, huh?" Bucky gave him a tight smile. "I guess the third thousandth time is the charm."

Loki gave Bucky a look, whatever he was going to say next cut off as he grimaced and carefully shifted his posture. His black hair hung in lank threads around his head as he bowed it and steadily took in breath after breath.

"Shuri will have those off you in no time," Bucky said.

Loki nodded, eyelids fluttering closed for the rest of the trip.

\----------

When they'd landed in Mount Bashenga, Loki had grown too quiet and still for it to mean anything good about his headspace. He stared at the lights that ran to Shuri's lab like they were a path that lead to a pit of fire instead of aid and healing.

T'Challa came over to them, slow and careful. Bucky appreciated the thoughtfulness towards Loki's sensitivity, even if Loki seemed to be heading into full-on shutdown mode from the stress.

"My sister will help you," T'Challa said.

Loki didn't move, his chin lowered to his chest. Bucky felt like he could see the thoughts moving behind his eyes, the counterpoint to the ones that tormented Bucky in the same moment.

( _Loki, pinned, uttering low and strained noises as a drill was placed against his head, as Bucky tried his damnedest to block it all out, to tell himself to keep it to-goddamn-gether, the least he could do as they dug into Loki's fucking_ skull.)

"Can you call her out?" Bucky asked, holding back the shudder from his thoughts. "See if she can work on him from here."

T'Challa looked between them. A sad smile formed on his face. "Give me a moment."

It wasn't long before he returned with Shuri. She cursed under her breath at the sight of them. "I am beginning to think leaving the two of you alone ever is not a good idea."

"It's probably not," Bucky said, leaning up in preparation.

Loki didn't say anything, turning his face away as she approached, his body tensing. Shuri paused, that familiar sorrow and guilt entering her eyes. "What, you're not going to tear me to ribbons?"

"Shuri," T'Challa admonished.

She rolled her eyes. "You sound like mother." She crouched down in front of Loki. His fingers grasped harshly into his knees as Shuri used a device to unlatch the mechanisms that kept the hoops locked around him. Bucky helped steady the one around Loki's neck, drawing it away and wincing at the damage. 

Shuri noted the difference. "What happened here?" 

"I tried to use the stabilizing energy to get him loose from the wall," Bucky explained. "I think I just gave a lot of it a convenient route to his body."

She grimaced, her hand hovering but not touching Loki's injury. "It will take time for your cells to return to normal from such proximity to direct energy. Here." She pulled out a new device, a large cylindrical container. "Hold out your hand," she told Loki.

Now Loki stared at her, wary, his upper body leaning slightly away. "For what reason?"

"I want to show you something. It's a new analgesic I have been working on."

Reluctantly, Loki held the limb out. Shuri squirted fluid over reddened skin, then moved back. "Well?"

Loki pulled in his arm, staring at his wrist in surprise. "The pain is less," he said. 

Shuri smiled. "It will take some fine tuning to be one hundred percent effective, but you may have this for now." Bucky took the offered container when Loki ignored it. "Also, I have made great progress on creating a suitable anesthetic. As soon as it is complete, if you wish, we may switch out your gauntlets for subdermal implants. They would be small enough that you would not even notice they are there."

Loki's gaze lowered. His shoulders slumped, like some sort of heavy weight had been peeled from his back. "Thank you."

Shuri raised her eyebrows. "Good Bast, was that you being polite to me for once?" Her eyes softened. "You are welcome." She turned to Bucky. "Now it is your turn."

"I'll heal," he said, meaning his cuts.

Shuri's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Oh, I was hoping you would deny the simple efficiency of medical care." She gestured at his prosthetic. "Did you want me to at least drain the energy from your arm while you are here?"

"Yeah, but not for the reason you think. Give me a second, I think I'm getting the hang of this." Bucky held out the arm and sought out the individual areas of stored energy. It was harder to do now that his mind and arm had switched off from the fight, but eventually he found what he was looking for.

He snapped his fingers. They emitted a spark of gold light. "Brought you a new project," he said to Shuri.

"Odin's power," Loki said, eyes wide. 

"Figure you can work on some adequate defenses for it," Bucky said. "Can you take it out without draining Loki's?"

Shuri nodded. "In my lab. Come on."

Bucky paused before following, turning to Loki. "I'll be right back."

Loki clenched his hands over his thighs, but he nodded.

\----------

When Bucky returned to the airship, King T'Challa was crouched near Loki, speaking quietly to him. Loki didn't look entirely comfortable with his proximity, rubbing his fingers in a nervous fidget, but at least he wasn't wild with fear or trying to hide in the wall. He nodded at something T'Challa said, his eyes drifting towards Bucky.

Bucky meant to make a beeline for them when General Okoye intercepted his progress.

"White Wolf," she said. "A word."

Bucky felt a twinge of worry, wondering what he was in for. "Sure."

"Part of having skill with a weapon is understanding it's workings, how it is powered, how it will accentuate your will in different scenarios." Her eyebrows drew together, her lips downturned. "'I think I'm starting to get the hang of this' should not be the words you say _after_ you have already staked your life on the utilization of the subject of that statement."

Bucky resisted the urge to grimace. "Noted." He didn't argue, didn't explain his reasonings for staying ignorant. The fact remained, he hadn't _wanted_ to learn how to be any more deadly with the arm than he had to be.

But he also hadn't expected to get attacked by a second superpowered alien god.

"I was there at the conception of your new limb," General Okoye said. "Even I, who would never use it, received full reports on its capabilities and projected uses, and the science behind its development."

Bucky stared at her, reading between the lines of her words. "You know how to stop it," he said.

"Should it ever come to it," she confirmed. "The knowledge exists. Not from Princess Shuri, but my own assessments of your weapon. Do not take this as a threat - unless that would help in making you consider actually practicing beyond _real active combat_ scenarios."

Having said her piece, she turned away, returning to the pilot seat aboard the airship. Bucky rotated his prosthetic, feeling a bit lighter after his dressing down, some sort of anxiety that had lingered in the back of his mind fading. 

A great part of that rested in the press of his aggression, in the anxiety that remained about the danger he posed to others. It was soothing to know that someone was in Wakanda who openly didn't discount the possibility of him one day needing to be taken down, excised triggers or no.

Another part was the fact that for a moment, General Okoye had sounded startlingly similar to Shuri. He was definitely going to keep that little tidbit in his back pocket for teasing Shuri later.

\------------

 

It was late into the night when they were dropped off at the farm. Bucky had called Anwuli to let her know they were inbound, that Loki was safe - that it was probably better if they were left alone to be given the night to recover.

They made their way to the hut, Bucky using his prosthetic to absently seek out and crush the mosquitoes that tried for a quick meal. He entered through the cloth, quickly picking up the pieces of the broken caracal to clear Loki's way. "You sure you're gonna be okay with this? Staying here?"

"No," Loki answered. He sat down heavily on his bed, messing with the earbuds Bucky had returned to him. "But I have...nowhere else. Even if they were to have left me use of my full power, I would have been able to do little save find a new enclosure in which to cower."

Bucky lowered a bag of supplies Shuri had given them onto the hut floor. He pulled out the analgesic spray. "You'll be more comfortable if we use more of this."

Loki tightened his lips. He pulled off his tunic with careful slowness, revealing bands of angry blistered red wrapping around his torso and arms. Even in the poor light of the hut they looked nasty, and had to be causing severe discomfort. If Bucky hadn't already seen Loki's reaction to being literally carved apart he would have been shocked at his disregard for his injuries, and the fact that he hadn't demanded help with the pain sooner.

Bucky crouched and began to methodically spray the wounds. "Your dad's a real dickhole," he said.

Loki laughed, more with the movement of his body than with sound, his sides shaking. "You do not believe his words."

"I believe a lot of what he said just fine. Except that bullshit about me being enthralled." Bucky shrugged. "It was the way he said it. The way he _used_ it that made me know not to trust a goddamn thing that came out of his mouth." His grip on the bottle had gone a little tight.

Loki noticed. "You are angry."

"I don't like being manipulated. Told what's what by someone who's really just trying to use me to get what they want."

Loki sent him a dry look. 

"You're different," Bucky muttered, moving on to Loki's back.

"Why?" Loki asked, head turned to watch him. "Because you wish it so?"

"Because he didn't act like either of us mattered. Like our thoughts didn't matter if they didn't line up with what he wanted. Like we weren't _people._ " Bucky pulled back. "Sorry. Kind of a sore spot with me. Are you thirsty?"

Loki stared down at his hands. "And how do you know that I have never thought the same?"

"It's not gonna surprise me if you did." Bucky stopped in the middle of grabbing a bottle of water. "All I care about is you're not doing it now."

"Do you?" There was a change; Loki rose to his full height, his demeanor losing its tired edge. "Because I have not been entirely truthful."

"No shit," Bucky said, standing his ground, thinking _here we go._

"I thought to protect myself," Loki went on. "I thought that if I were never to admit it aloud, give no indication of it, the flaw would simply disappear. But no matter how I tried, you _refused_ to give strength to those thoughts, and the cracks only deepened."

"What the hell are you talking about? What thoughts?" Bucky swallowed, there was a charge in the air, something new and different than the pure aggression, and Loki...Loki was _very_ close. "What flaw?"

Loki's hand drifted up to Bucky's hip, grasping. Familiar. The charge in the air strengthened. "What else?"

Bucky felt every muscle in his body suddenly become keyed up. "No."

Loki didn't move away, the predatory posture in full swing. "Was that disbelief or denial?"

Bucky shook his head. "You're fucking with me."

Loki's mouth quirked. "Not as of yet."

"I'm your _warden_."

Something angry entered Loki's eyes, his brow pinching. "Thank you for the reminder. I will be sure to...engage myself accordingly."

Then there were lips on Bucky's neck, his brain whiting out and _fuck, fuck!_

Before he realized what he was doing he'd grabbed Loki by the neck and slammed him into the wall of the hut, holding him pinned with a metal hand.

Loki's winced, and his trachea rumbled against vibranium. He was laughing, his hands raised up in surrender. "So this is what it takes to get you to fight back."

Bucky released Loki and stepped away, for the first time in forever feeling far too hot. Every averted glance, every pent up feeling that he'd been trying to ignore was suddenly threatening to bubble over. He schooled his voice. "This isn't a good idea."

Loki rubbed at his neck, and Bucky was eternally thankful that they hadn't started this until after he'd been sprayed with the new painkiller. "Why not? I am finally getting what I want, in both senses of what I have been hoping to achieve."

Bucky took another step back. "I haven't even _considered_ having sex with anyone in _years._ "

Loki was already coming for him again, stalking forward, and Bucky felt a thrill low in his belly that he violently tried to push away, to stop, and then Loki was mouthing at his jaw, and _god_ it was too much, it was-

He slammed Loki back and downwards, and crouched over him, his metal palm pressed to his bared chest. Stabilizing energy crackled at his fingertips, just barely held back by sheer force of will. Bucky panted hard, and felt guilt clawing into him.

But not just guilt.

Loki's pupils had expanded until only small rings of color were left around their blackness. His hand came for the back of Bucky's neck, pulling him in close with a strong grip. "Do not consider, Wolf," Loki said, breathless. "Do not think. You are far better when you simply react."

The cloth to the hut moved with a flash of red. Bucky turned his head and found himself staring up at the muzzles of twin submachine guns. "Well, I think he'll be a lot better if you get your damn hands off him. Slowly."

Bucky frowned, feeling like his brain was short-circuiting with confusion. "Wilson?"

"Don't you move either." Wilson, dressed in full Falcon armor, lowered a single gun. His hand went to a coms unit in his ear. "I got 'em. Third hut closest to the goat pen. Looks like the guy's tip off was legit."

Fast footsteps approached outside, and then a dark uniform pushed its way into the hut, its wearer staring down at them with a creased brow as he took in the display of Bucky and Loki tangled together on the floor.

Steve.

"Buck."

_Shit._


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this and the epilogue ("chapter 19") as separate parts.

Bucky won't ever say it out loud, but sometimes when he sees Steve, he doesn't recognize him - and not just because he'd lately taken to letting his facial hair grow out. The knowledge of him just judders loose from Bucky's mind in abrupt instances, like water through a sieve, and leaves him reeling and confused, grasping for something just out of reach.

It was worse in the beginning, when he'd gone on the run. Over the years, the percentage of instances in which it tended to happen had faded to an almost negligible fraction. But still, sometimes he looks at the man that had been his best friend growing up in Brooklyn and his reality gets bent out of shape, like when he flashes back and the world jars halfway into his time as Hydra's Winter Soldier. He doesn't know if it's just a side effect of Steve being the one that finally broke through to him, of being the only beacon through the suffocating murk of the lies that had fucked him up so thoroughly. Of being one of the only things that kept him fighting and running from Hydra's crumbling organization instead of throwing himself at their feet and letting them take him back. 

Whatever the reason, with unpredictable frequency, Bucky's mind gets stuck in that hopeless in-between for long seconds, the knowing and not knowing, breaking down whatever frail trust in himself and the world around him that he had begun to piece back together.

Steve's _goodness_ , though - that Bucky always knows, now. An interminable and constant fact, like the rising and setting of the sun.

Which meant that whether he completely knew him in a certain instant or not, Bucky was getting used to the combined feelings of deep gratefulness, guilt, and _pure fucking exasperation_ as he found that quality directed at him, especially when he was at a low point.

Bucky was pretty sure this situation qualified.

Loki's hand on the back of his neck tightened, thumb digging into his jugular, the grip hard enough that Bucky wouldn't have been able to easily remove it. His thoughts and emotions were unsteady, his instincts all over the place about what he needed to direct his worry at the most and warring with conscious thought. Beneath all of that, was the shocked realization of just how deep in he was.

Loki wasn't the shared memory of one of Bucky's gals from back in the day, something for Steve and him to bond over and help draw Bucky firmly back into believing that maybe this was a world where he could hope to exist, one that he wouldn't quite mind dying for.

Loki was supposed to be the type of person they fought to hold true to those ideals, a darker shade on the spectrum between black and white. 

Bucky had seen Loki's other side, sure - the one _not_ hellbent on destroying everything for himself and the people around him. That still didn't excuse...whatever this was. Or the fact that Bucky wasn't sure he could drop these burgeoning feelings if he tried, no matter what the others thought.

"Loki," Steve said, his voice a careful warning - he sounded ready to dive into the fight as soon as he was provoked. "Let him go."

The hand on the back of Bucky's neck finally slipped away, falling to the hut floor with a loud thud. "Captain," Loki said, sounding bitterly disappointed. "You have astonishingly regrettable timing."

"I'd say my timing's just fine. Step back," Steve ordered, and it took Bucky a second to realize the words were directed at him. "Slowly."

Bucky could feel Loki tense beneath him, his eyes narrowing at the others with something a bit less resigned and a lot more angry. "Stay down," Bucky said. "Let me talk to them." He lifted his hand from Loki's chest and pulled himself off the hut floor. 

Steve didn't relax, even though Loki didn't move, just stayed flat on his back on the ground with his hands curled loosely at his sides. "What's your plan here, Loki?"

 _Plan?_ Bucky scowled. "Steve. Why are you here?"

"We're saving your ass," Wilson said, guns still locked onto Loki.

Bucky shook his head in confusion. "From what? From _Loki_?"

Wilson tilted his head towards Steve. "Looks like it's worse than he said. We should get the muzzle on Loki before he starts messing with our heads, too."

Bucky stared between them in absolute bafflement. 

On the ground, Loki was overtaken by soft spasmodic laughter, high-pitched and wild.

Wilson bristled. "Hey! Keep that up and I'm gonna fire a warning shot."

"You know them," Loki said to Bucky. "Of course you do. The Norns laugh." He quieted, all expression leaving his face as he stared up at the hut ceiling. "Take me, if you wish. I care not."

"I don't need saving," Bucky said, getting more irritated the longer he was kept in the dark. "I found Loki buried in the ground in some lab. It's a long story. King T'Challa asked me to watch him." The expressions on the others didn't change, their guards still up. Bucky scowled. "What exactly do you think is going on here?"

Steve's brow creased, but it was Loki that answered, his voice toneless. "I have clouded your mind. Taken control of your wants. How far does my influence spread?" The last question was directed at Wilson and Steve. "It would have to include the royal family, at the very least. Else you would not have come here alone in the cover of night."

"Loki, what the hell," Bucky hissed.

Loki waved an airy hand, nonchalant, which had to be an absolute fucking front. "You revealed to Odin your full name, Wolf. He knows who your friends are. He may have even placed upon them a simple enchantment to bolster their stealth so we would not sense them coming. They have been called forth to save you from my mastery."

Now Bucky was clued in. His arm started gearing up in his fury, his shoulders squaring. 

Steve didn't have any visible weapons, but he tensed in kind. Wilson looked torn, like he suddenly wanted both of his guns aimed at Bucky instead of just one. 

_Smart,_ Bucky thought, even as the fact fanned the flames of his rage. "I'm not brainwashed, or under any kind of mind control. Wilson, I _swear to god,_ you fire that gun at me and we're gonna have a problem."

Wilson lowered his gun half a centimeter, raising his eyebrows over his goggles.

There was a low cracking noise. Bucky lashed out and deflected a small sharp object as it burst through the wall, only for another to pierce into the back of his neck from a completely different angle. Numbness began to spread through his back. _God fucking dammit._ He wavered, and the world tilted as he collapsed. 

Loki lurched up with a snarl, his indifference vanishing in a second. "Fools! He is my keeper, not my pawn."

For a second before consciousness faded, Bucky thought a protest that for the first time, he actually had more he'd been wanting to say.

\------------

Voices faded in and out, before Bucky's awareness returned enough to retain what people were saying. A quick assessment turned up no injuries aside from the cuts caused by Loki breaking him free of the vibranium nanite casing down in the lab. He carefully stayed down anyway. He hadn't been restrained, but he could sense that his body wasn't quite under his full control just yet, and he didn't know how many of them there were - his hut wasn't built for tactical evasion of threats.

"His mind is clear." A feminine voice, nearby. Too close. "There are old wounds from Hydra, but nothing more. Loki's magic exists only within his arm."

Wilson spoke. "Maybe we should shoot him again anyway, just in case." Bucky was sure that was only half a joke.

"Did you get anything from Loki?" That was Steve, standing closest to him.

"Not much." Romanoff. "He's oddly concerned for Barnes's physical safety. And he's...erratic. A lot more than he was the last time we saw him."

"Sometimes losing can do that to a guy."

"I'm not sure that's what this is. He's - fragile. Falling apart. I don't think he has a plan to bolster his confidence."

"I still don't like this. Loki's secure, but the last time he came that easy it didn't turn out well."

"This hut...it has two beds."

"So they were shacked up together."

"A tiny hut on the riverside isn't exactly Loki's M.O."

"Nat's right. We'll forego the drop off point until we know more."

"You think there's a chance Barnes took this position of his own free will? Why wouldn't he tell us?"

"I'd think that would be fairly obvious."

"Hey, I'm not the one who shot him in the back."

"We needed to be sure. You didn't sound like you were acting fast enough."

"Guys - he's awake. He's listening."

Bucky jolted up, caught out, his head ringing but his muscles responsive enough for him to move without being stymied. He was still in his hut. When he saw the redhead, Maximoff, crouched next to him, it sent feelings of cold apprehension down his spine. She'd been in his head.

He moved sharply to the side. She kept her hands down, her mouth twisting. 

He looked away from her with effort. Wilson, Romanoff, and Steve were standing gathered in a circle at the entrance. They all turned to face him, Steve at the forefront.

"I am sorry," Maximoff said softly, like he was a spooked dog. "We only wanted to help you."

He looked around, seeing the rest of the hut was empty. "Where's Loki?"

"On the Quinjet," Steve answered, observing him carefully. "It's not far."

Bucky climbed to his feet with a sudden spear of panic, noting the tension that rose back up in Wilson and Romanoff at his quick movement. "Fuck, he's alone?"

"We didn't leave him unguarded," Steve said, brow drawn low at the sight of Bucky's distress. "He's all right. Vision's with him."

Bucky stared blankly. 

"Vision," Wilson repeated. "You know, the red guy with the yellow stone in the middle of his head."

"Thought he wasn't on our side," Bucky said, voice low.

"He is on my side," Maximoff said, rising beside him. "He will not give away our location." She spoke with certainty, and with something else. Something that Bucky was beginning to identify more and more with as it emerged and made itself insistent among disordered thoughts.

He shook off the last dregs of whatever he'd been dosed with, pressing the palm of his prosthetic against his aching head. "So what happened that made you think I was a threat?"

Steve folded his arms. "We got a visitor. An informant who told us about Loki showing up in Wakanda, with a lot more power than he had the last time we fought."

Bucky sighed and dropped his hand, feeling the familiar stirrings of rage. "Loki's dad - Odin, right? White hair, one eye. Spewing some bullshit about Loki mind-controlling everyone."

"You know," Steve said, frowning.

"Yeah. He tried the same thing here when he showed up and attacked Loki. I thought he was gonna kill me to take him back."

Steve's expression went dark. "He left that part out. Are you safe?"

"You were his plan B when he had to turn tail because he couldn't beat us." Bucky rubbed down his prosthetic, nausea building at the memory of suffocation. "Shuri's making some extra defenses against his magic in case he shows up again." 

"Magic," Wilson repeated. "Like that stuff that's in your arm."

Bucky didn't want to get into this right now, not with every second Loki was left alone stretching into an eternity. He turned to Maximoff. "I'm clear?"

She straightened and nodded, her eyes full of guilt.

"Thanks for checking," he said, genuinely grateful that her interference at least meant he didn't have to do any more convincing than he needed to. He turned back to the others. "Those things on Loki's hands lock down his power. If he gets violent, tries to actively hurt anyone, they trigger a field so he can barely move. He can't even go too far from me without them activating to slow him down. And that's not even considering the fact that he can't take a walk outside anyway without having about fifteen panic attacks."

Steve breathed out through his nostrils. "We got one story. Sounds like we need to hear another."

"I get it. But I'm only giving you the cliff notes." Bucky flexed his prosthetic, mentally preparing. "All I know is that Loki showed up in Wakanda five years ago and stole one of the herbs that enhances physiology. He did it because he was trying to survive a fatally infected wound. The Wakandans attacked him when he was trying to escape, but they couldn't kill him. So they stopped him. They stuck him in the ground. He was trapped in stasis for five years, encased in metal nanites. And he was awake and alone for every moment of it. It fucked with his head in the worst way." Bucky clenched his hands, feeling a cold sweat break out over his skin. "The only reason he's out now is because I came across him by accident. Shuri and King T'Challa didn't know he was down there. I was offered the job to watch him and help him adjust. I took it. Felt like it was the least I could do after everything they did for me." He lowered his eyes. "I know what Loki did. But he's not dangerous. Not right now. He saved my life. And wherever you put him, he's probably losing his mind right about now."

Steve's frown deepened. He glanced at Romanoff and then stepped aside so he was no longer blocking the hut door. "Come on."

\--------------

Loki was strapped into one of the seats of the quinjet, leaning forward, shuddering, his arms bound behind him. Chains were wrapped around his ankles and knees, and around the entirety of his torso. Vision was beside him; he looked up with yellow eyes as they came up the ramp.

Bucky paused, eyeing him warily, memories of nebulous powers at the airport flashing in his mind.

"He's good," Steve said to Vision. "Apparently, so is Loki. The Wakandans already have everything under control."

Vision looked mildly confused, but he stepped away as Bucky approached.

When he got close enough, Bucky noticed the small, familiar-looking lights that threaded through Loki's bonds. "Where did the chains come from," Bucky asked, already knowing the answer.

"Odin gave them to us," Romanoff said. "To keep Loki contained."

Had Odin gotten them from King T'Chaka? Bucky exhaled. They'd let Loki replace his tunic before tying him up, so most of the damage wasn't readily visible. Bucky wouldn't have even thought he was hurting if he didn't have a graphic experience of what Loki could endure without showing it.

Bucky moved forward, crouching down as Loki raised his head, revealing eyes glazed in the way they used to get back when he'd been getting eaten alive by invading cells. The lower half of his face had been clamped into a metal device that made Bucky flash uncomfortably back to the mask he used to wear for Hydra. A muzzle.

Bucky really, really wanted another shot at Odin. "Is there a key to these?"

Romanoff stepped forward and handed him an orb - a goddamn Kimoyo Bead. Had Odin stolen it or or had it been gifted to him? Bucky felt the outrage run through him for half a second more before he used it to unlatch the muzzle, pulling it from Loki's face and exhaling heavily at the red and blisters that lined his sharp jaw. 

Behind him, Maximoff let out a gasp and Wilson cursed.

"Wolf," Loki murmured, his voice garbled and hoarse, and way too distant in tone. He winced and darted his tongue out to wet his lips, staining them with fresh blood. "Did you...finally come to your senses?"

"Ha, fucking, ha," Bucky answered. He dug the fingers of his prosthetic into the lights on the muzzle, only mildly satisfied by the crush and snap as they were destroyed. He tossed it aside and then went to work on Loki's remaining chains.

"Odin did not tell us that the restraint devices would cause harm," Vision said.

"What a goddamn shock," Bucky muttered. He worked Loki the rest of the way free and then pulled him up, Loki bracing his arm over Bucky's shoulders with a low hiss. 

The others were standing near the ramp, watching him and Loki interact. Bucky swallowed, then shoved his doubts aside, exhausted and annoyed. Loki's grip trembled against his shoulder. "If you're staying, keep an eye out for Odin. King T'Challa already told him he wasn't welcome here."

"What are you gonna do?" Wilson asked as they passed him.

"Sleep," Bucky said. "Hopefully without anyone barging in to shoot or kidnap us for at least twenty-four hours."

"We'll keep watch," Steve said. 

Bucky nodded. "Thank you."

Loki shuddered against his side, throat working as they stepped outside of the airship. Bucky felt a few alarm bells begin to sound an instant before the body beside him lurched forward and vomited bile onto the ground.

"Shit," Bucky swore, gripping tight as Loki slumped and panted against him. "Hang on. We're almost back in." 

"You are...taking me back." Loki sounded surprised and confused. "To the hut?"

Bucky knew the others were watching, but he didn't give a good goddamn. "Where the hell else would I take you?"

Loki didn't answer, and Bucky sighed at the coil of anxiety that formed as he filled in the blanks. Even when Bucky had showed up on the Quinjet, Loki hadn't believed it was to return him to the life he'd been living.

Inside the hut, Loki went tense and stopped breathing as Bucky carefully pulled him out of his tunic for the second goddamn time of the night. He helped lower Loki down so he was supine on his bed. Loki arched his back away when it made contact, sucking in a harsh breath through his nose, hands grasping uselessly at nothing.

"Hang on," Bucky said, grabbing the analgesic. "Try to hold still. I don't want to waste any of this." He began applying it over the new marks. 

Loki trembled in pain as he stared at the ceiling of the hut. "It is a pity we were interrupted," he said, voice still too far away.

"You're not still on that," Bucky said, hoping acting casual would help ground them both. "Maybe wait until you have time to heal from having nearly all of your dermis disintegrated twice in one night."

Loki moved his gaze to Bucky. His eyes held a bright sheen. "You never answered."

"Wasn't aware there was a question. On your stomach, let me get your back."

Loki obliged, and pillowed his head with his arms, starting to move more easily as the analgesic worked. Bucky was careful to be as efficient as possible in his use with what they had. Shuri probably hadn't expected them to need use the entire bottle in one night. 

"I asked why you consider such an action a 'bad idea,'" Loki said.

"Because it is," Bucky answered.

"There is no dispute as to the point," Loki said. "I only ask for your specific reasoning."

Bucky didn't make eye contact. "I don't know if I can trust myself to do what's right."

Loki grasped at Bucky's flesh arm, pulling himself up so he was sitting in front of him. His jaw and lips remained a reddened mess, but his gaze was intent. "So it is perfectly fine to care for someone such as I, but a step further would be far too much tarnish on your soul."

Bucky shut his eyes, grinding his jaw. "That's not what I said. And my soul's already tarnished to shit, don't know what you think being with you is going to add to that."

"You want it."

Bucky forced his eyes back open. "That's kind of the problem."

Loki's grip on his arm grew tighter, his voice more insistent. " _I_ want it."

" _Loki_." And dammit, how Loki was playing this situation was _working_. Bucky backed off, pulling himself free of the touch on his arm. He tried to shut himself down, forcing his voice flat. "You don't have to prove anything to me. You already know I'm not going anywhere."

Something changed in Loki's eyes, a desperation that lurked in their depths coming to the fore. "You cannot predict that. Your friends..."

"My friends what," Bucky said. He stared at Loki, realization clicking into place. "You think I'm gonna leave you because of them."

The corner of Loki's mouth quirked up, but he was fidgeting with his gauntlets. "Do you believe Captain America would approve of your task?"

Bucky snorted in amusement. "You really don't know Steve at all. And he's not my boss."

"He came to save you from me. To do what is just and right."

"Yeah, well, you already know that Odin left out a few details when he sent them here. And I don't need saving from anyone. Not right now, anyway. Come on. I haven't really slept in two days, I'm not gonna be up for any mental gymnastics. Let's just...cool it. Let me put the rest of the analgesic on. We'll get back to it later - at least until after I've made absolutely sure Romanoff didn't bug the hut."

Loki subsided with reluctance. Bucky gave him a tight smile, all the while thinking, Jesus, what kind of a guy was willing to put aside so much of his own physical comfort when it came to sex in an effort to get someone like _Bucky_ to stay with him?

Then he thought of Loki's dad, the way he'd treated him, and his mood got a whole lot darker. He'd fucking _known._ And he'd called Loki's anger for all of the torment a grudge, dismissive, with no care for the damage he'd caused. The fact that he might not have been aware of the scope of it really didn't help Bucky's view.

"You should allow me to do the remainder myself," Loki said, holding his hand out for the analgesic, unaware of Bucky's brooding. "I do not know if..."

Right. Nothing below the belt. Bucky handed him the bottle, turning away and trying to ignore the rustle of cloth that soon followed. "I'm gonna turn in," he said, a persistent ache low in his belly that threatened to flare back to harsher life if he focused too much on its presence. "Good night."

There was a heavy sigh. "Good night, Wolf."

\------------

Bucky's night of sleep, predictably, was godawful.

He was exhausted and sore to his bones, but that didn't stop him from frequently springing awake from nightmares that left him drenched in sweat, panicky and full of dread, sure he was going to look at the cloth on the door of the hut and see the shadow of a man visible over its surface. Then he would calm, and stare at Loki and think about just how damn lucky they were to still be here, before getting dragged back down into the next horrorshow that awaited in his sleep. 

When he woke for the last time, it was near afternoon. He sat up, groggily staring at the brightness that shone on the hanging cloth at the door, then rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand, feeling a bit like shit warmed over. Which was ridiculous of his body, he noted bitterly. Especially since he'd somehow escaped his encounter with Odin with less physical damage than he'd accrued in both his encounter with the War Dogs and Tony Stark.

Loki was on his bed, long body curled tight, his earbuds in place and his mouth slightly open as he breathed softly in his sleep. The blisters looked like they'd mostly faded, but his skin was still hued like a sunburn, his body slow to heal around the damage of the older, cruder stabilizing energy. His sheet had spread out onto the floor in a pool of crimson, indicating that his night hadn't exactly been the best, either.

Bucky carefully rose, still dressed in his armor from the night before. Sunlight beamed in little lines through the exit points of the damage in the hut wall, making Bucky uncomfortably aware of just how flimsy his current living space was against attack. 

When he moved outside, he saw Steve and Romanoff speaking with King T'Challa, shadowed by a pair of Dora Milaje standing at the farm's perimeter. Maximoff was crouched down next to a resting cow by the goat pen, scratching it behind the ears. Vision was with her, looking completely out of place both in his stiff posture and an ascot and flannel pants. The kids of the tribe were watching them, but keeping a careful distance. They were probably especially spooked after what had happened to Ndidi.

"Bed-head's up," Wilson remarked, and Bucky turned to see that _he_ was still fully suited up, sitting in one of the chairs placed outside the hut. 

Anwuli was standing next to him. She uttered a shocked noise at the sight of him, and he waved her off as she rushed over, not wanting her to panic. "I'm all right," he said as she examined him. "Most of it'll be gone in a couple of days."

A tinge of frustration entered her eyes, and she let out a slew of colorful curses in Xhosa that left Bucky blinking in surprise. "I will bring you some lunch," she said when she was finished. 

Bucky's stomach growled in agreement. "Thank you," he said.

He turned to Wilson as she left. He was looking through a tablet - _Loki's_ tablet, Bucky noticed with some annoyance. "She's a nice lady," Wilson said. He cocked his head to the side, peering at Bucky through the red lenses on his goggles. "So, still not brainwashed?" 

Bucky frowned. "No."

"Just checking," Wilson raised a shoulder. "We didn't see Loki's dad at all, in case you were wondering."

Steve had noticed he was up and out of the hut and was wandering over. "Buck. How are you?"

"Better," Bucky said, his emotions tangling in his chest. "Thanks for keeping an eye out for us."

Steve looked vaguely relieved at the words. He turned his gaze to the cloth over the hut door. "What's Loki's condition?"

"Sleeping," Bucky answered. "I gave him an analgesic spray Shuri made, but it takes a bit for him to heal from restraints like that."

Steve nodded. "T'Challa's been catching us up. I was...I was going to ask if you'd like to fill in the blanks."

 _Not really,_ was Bucky's gut response. Instead, he forced a small smile. "Sure. Give me a sec." He took two quick steps over to Wilson and ripped the tablet from his hands. 

"That was rude," Wilson protested.

"This isn't yours," Bucky shot back, taking it back inside the tent. 

Bucky had been intending to set the tablet down and head back out when he noticed Loki was watching him through half-lidded eyes, his hair a wild mess around his head.

"Hey," Bucky greeted.

Loki stared at him, fingers curled into the small corner of the sheet he'd managed to keep on the bed. The ends of it looked frayed. "Are you real?"

Bucky sighed unhappily. He moved over to Loki and crouched down, holding out his prosthetic and gripping into a pale hand. "Yeah."

Loki moved his fingers, sluggishly curling them against metal. "I am still here," he said, voice still far too dull for Bucky's liking. "He did not succeed. It was not a dream."

Boy, Bucky was going to be thinking fondly of the memory of his fist cracking into Odin's face for a _very_ long time. "It sure as hell fucking wasn't."

Loki's eyes opened more fully, going to the door to the hut. The sound of low conversation just outside was drifting in. "Your friends remain."

"Friends is putting it on a little thick for some of them," Bucky muttered. "But they weren't a dream, either. You need to use the bathrooms at all?"

Loki slowly moved his eyes back to Bucky. "It is the middle of the day."

"Yeah."

"I will be fine to wait," Loki said, a brief shudder rocking him. "Just now I do not think...I would rather..."

"Okay," Bucky said, throat tightening. "I'm gonna be just outside. Let me know if that changes."

Loki shut his eyes again. His hand fell loose from Bucky's prosthetic. "Thank you, Wolf."

\------------

Anwuli brought them food, and directed Steve to where he could grab more chairs. Then she had left to attend to her daily chores, but not before recommending the best direction for a riverside walk to Wanda and Vision. 

Bucky started from the beginning, keeping his narrative fairly coherent. He intentionally omitted anything to do with his emotions or specific personal things Loki had said, very aware that Loki could probably hear them perfectly if he'd been caring enough to listen.

"We asked Odin why he had come to us instead of sending Thor," Steve said after Bucky had finished. "He said Thor was busy 'keeping the peace of the Nine Realms.' Now I'm wondering if it was another reason. When we last saw Thor he told us Loki had died saving his life."

Bucky frowned as another revelation slotted into making a clearer picture of how Loki had ended up here. 

King T'Challa pursed his lips. "Thor is Loki's brother, yes?" 

"Loki was adopted," Romanoff said. "Thor is Odin's biological son. He's the heir to the throne."

"And you do not think Thor was aware of his brother's fate," T'Challa said.

Steve shook his head. "Thor helped us stop Loki's attack the first time around, but I don't think he'd condone something like this."

"Unless he didn't have any other choice," Romanoff said. "If Loki's that powerful, keeping him locked up the way he was would be one of the only ways of preventing him from causing trouble." 

"Or Odin could have just lied to him," Bucky pointed out, remembering the complete avoidance of the subject on Loki's part when he'd caught him researching Thor.

Romanoff shrugged. "Odin wants Loki alive. It's likely he wanted him broken. He clearly didn't expect him to be released prematurely, or with enough time to get molded free from his influence."

Bucky narrowed his eyes at her, clenching his hands. "I'm not molding him."

She shrugged, unperturbed by his mood. "He kept Loki cut off from everything. Tortured him with brutal efficiency for years without needing to raise a single finger or indicate any of his involvement. All he would have had to do was show up and present himself as Loki's liberator."

( _"What you want is_ everything. _It cannot be anything else, not for me."_ )

She was right. And maybe Loki's vibranium-enhanced disease wouldn't have spread and mutated as quickly without Shuri's altered restraints, or maybe Odin would have found a way to fix him so he could keep living. 

The fact that Loki might have gotten himself into this mess in the first place didn't soothe Bucky's continued urge for violence at the thought. He clenched his fists, the energy in his prosthetic feeling a lot more readily accessible than it had a moment before. "He told Loki something was coming. Loki didn't believe him, and Odin didn't elaborate. But if he needed him, that might have been the reason."

Steve looked deep in thought. "If we can get Loki to draw Odin in again, maybe we can talk to him, see if we can get him to tell us what's going on."

"No," Bucky said, instantly on the defensive, his anger at the entire situation seeping into his voice. "I'm not gonna put Loki through that."

"Can't believe I'm saying this, but I have to agree with Barnes," Wilson said. "Stopping Loki is one thing, but knowingly triggering re-traumatization is another. Seems like his dad is a big part of that mess."

Bucky had a moment to be surprised before Steve spoke again. "Then we'll head to the drop off point without Loki. Hopefully Odin shows, and we can talk to him there." He nodded to Wilson. "Send out Redwing. Let Wanda and Vision know we're leaving." 

"Captain Rogers, my sister is developing prototypes of her new defense devices for Odin," T'Challa said. "It may be wise to outfit you with them for your task. You should accompany me to her lab. It will not take us long."

Steve nodded. He looked at Bucky, his expression suddenly pained around the edges. "Are you good?"

Bucky tightened his lips. He nodded. "I've got a lot of people watching out for me here."

Steve nodded back, clapping his hand on Bucky's shoulder as he rose. "I'll contact you as soon as we know more."

Bucky was left with Romanoff and Wilson, the silence stretching awkwardly as he was keenly aware of their gazes.

Wilson was the first to break it, audibly clearing his throat. "So, you and Loki, huh?"

"What," Bucky asked, voice flat.

He shrugged his shoulder up. "Odd choice for a friendship." 

"Friendship," Bucky repeated, thinking that description was slightly off to what he and Loki had, both too much and not enough of a description. 

"Just saying, things were looking kind of touchy feely when we walked in on you."

Romanoff's eyebrows creased. She was suddenly looking at Bucky a lot more carefully.

Bucky blanked his face as best he could. "If it was, it wouldn't be any of your damn business."

"I mean, I'd think it kinda would be, seeing as the guy, you know, was the whole ringleader behind the Battle of New York."

Romanoff's brow drew down as she adjusted her gaze. She was searching for tells. "Barnes," she said, a hint of reproach in her voice at his silence. 

"I don't know what Wilson is talking about." He stared at her head on, feeling like he was stepping into an arena armed only with a polypropylene knife. "Loki and I were having an argument - we do that a lot. Things got heated. Then he barged in."

"I guess that makes sense," Wilson allowed. "Most of the arguments I've seen you have before now have tended to be on the physical side rather than the verbal."

Bucky frowned, finally breaking eye contact with Romanoff. "Trying to kill you isn't an argument."

"If it was, clearly it's an argument Nat and I have won. Repeatedly."

Bucky sighed, withdrawing. "I need to wash up."

He moved back into the hut. Loki was up, sitting on his bed and staring at his hands, an empty bowl from lunch at his side. He flinched and darted a look up with wide eyes, relaxing when he saw it was Bucky, then just as soon running through a slough of negative emotions. At least he looked like he was a little more present.

"Don't worry about whatever you heard," Bucky said, soft so the others outside wouldn't catch it.

Loki itched along the inside of his wrist, his gaze moving away. "I understand. You need to protect yourself."

Bucky sighed, considering. "They'll be gone soon. I'll ask the tribe to clear the way to the bathrooms for us so you can have some privacy." He swallowed. "Then after that...if I give you control of your powers, can you take us somewhere?"

Loki paused in his fidgeting. "Somewhere," he repeated with an almost wary tone.

"Anywhere," Bucky clarified. "In Wakanda. Somewhere you'd be comfortable. Preferably not a four foot tall cave."

"I could," Loki said, still looking confused and cautious.

"Great," Bucky said. "I'll pack us some food."

\-------------

Teleporting still hadn't gotten old, especially now that they weren't in a life or death situation and Bucky could properly appreciate it.

They were at Warrior Falls. Bucky listened to the roar in the distance, smelled fresh water in the air, felt the cool breeze cross his skin. Hours of travel on foot crossed in an instant. 

Loki had drawn himself into a particularly deep indentation of an outcropping, sliding down so he was sitting on the ground, blocking most of the open space from his vision. His expression was listless, even as he gestured expansively at their surroundings. "Ta-da."

Bucky settled down beside him, putting his pack aside and staring out over the clear water. He didn't replace the gauntlets, which Loki couldn't have missed. "So how pissed is Odin gonna be that he didn't succeed a second time?"

"I can only imagine," Loki said. He darted a look skyward, then quickly pulled back even tighter to the rock behind him. His magic floated around his head in little agitated starts, but even with his Stabilizing Beads still in his pocket, Bucky wasn't worried about it coming for him. 

He threaded his fingers together, setting his elbows on his drawn up knees. "General Okoye thinks I should get more practice in with the arm."

Loki shot him a look, quirking an eyebrow. As the day had gone on, the patches of red on his face had begun to fade as they healed into pink. His neck was still ringed with damage like a collar, dusky and caustic, all the more prominent and out of place now that the rest of him had been cleansed. Bucky had insisted on using the last of Shuri's spray there before they'd left.

"Practice," Loki said. "With the technology that you ably wielded enough to damage the Allfather."

Bucky shrugged. "I think she's a bit of a perfectionist. And she's right. I was sloppy. I got myself into a situation where I panicked and if it wasn't for you, we might not have come back out of it." 

"We," Loki said, like he was still surprised that Bucky thought to refer to them together in the same sentence. 

He didn't comment on it. "Since a lot of what I did depended on your magic, I thought maybe I'd ask if you wanted to help with that."

Loki looked immediately frustrated. "I cannot...to spar in the open would be a poor choice." He looked down at his hands, his jaw clenched, and then gestured forward. There was a green light, and suddenly a second Loki was standing in front of them.

Bucky lurched up to his feet in shock, staring at the perfect likeness, the green and gold armor that filled him out. He stepped over, reaching out hesitantly with the prosthetic while the double tracked him eerily, completely silent and free of the injuries that marked the real Loki. A finger against its chest proved its solidity. 

Bucky pulled back, staring at the real Loki, noting how much smaller and worn he looked by comparison, sitting in a simple tunic and pants on the ground. "How did you do that?"

"Magic," Loki said dryly.

"Any chance of being more specific?"

"Why," Loki asked, some of that old suspicion drawing up again.

"Because if I'm gonna be using it I should know as much about it as I can."

Loki stilled for a moment. Then he huffed out a laugh. "Why, Wolf, you sound as if you plan to punch your way through the entirety of Earth for me."

"Just the people who try to kill us," Bucky said. "Or think that what you deserve is _more_ torture after the shit you've been through."

Loki went quiet, his gaze lowering, hair spilling forward over his shoulders. "I am not the same as I once was," he eventually said. "In the physical sense. What explanations I might have had...the application seems familiar enough, but it is different." He waved at the air around his head, to the green lights moving around. "For instance...these. I cannot contain them. I can barely control them." His face twisted in bitterness and self-disgust, like the fact was an irrefutable statement on his lack of worth as a person.

"All that tells me is we both need practice," Bucky said.

Loki hunched his shoulders, picking at a hand. "I do not think your allies would approve."

"General Okoye's not gonna want you having full access anywhere around her or King T'Challa or Shuri," Bucky agreed. "It's fine. We can work it out on our own, away from people. It'll get easier."

Loki sent him a look like he didn't believe him. 

Bucky didn't admit that he wasn't quite sure he believed it himself. 

\-----------

Loki's double wasn't perfect as a sparring partner, as it turned out. It was fully physical, and strong to an eerie degree, but it's senses were at least somewhat tied into Loki's, evidenced by the fact that more than once it froze suddenly and completely faded from existence at the sight of Wakanda's landscape. When that happened Bucky would wait it out, check that Loki was okay - usually to a tense and frustrated nod - and after a minute it would pop back up into being.

The fighting, though - that was _good._ Bucky couldn't remember the last time he'd engaged in something like this, violence without the intent to truly harm ( _kill_ ) while his opponent was under similar restrictions. It had probably been in basic combat training after he'd been drafted.

Loki's double held back and fought dirty at the same time, riddling Bucky with bruises, pinning him in holds so he had no choice but to use the stabilizing energy in his arm to break out of them, forcing him to focus to conserve his stores rather than eject it all in one blast like his instincts wanted. He didn't even touch the reserve of Loki's energy, saving it in the event of a real emergency, the fight and durability of his current adversary keeping the memory of Odin's terrifying strength niggling in the back of his mind. 

Bucky shouted as the double yanked on a hank of his hair while it brought a knee up to his chest in a blow that he only just intercepted with another jolt of stabilizing energy, his prosthetic crushing it back down before he raised his arm in a fury-driven uppercut to its face.

It vanished immediately.

Bucky straightened in its absence, the abrupt bereftness leaving him disappointed. His muscles were on the edge of shaking, having faced an opponent that required enough effort to break them down, but he felt like he had at least another good hour in him before his skill really started to suffer.

The double didn't come back. Bucky turned to Loki, noting his tense expression with a stab of worry. "You can't feel pain when I hit that thing, right?"

"No," Loki answered, his voice strained. 

The worry deepened. Bucky turned to Loki more fully. "You okay?"

"No," Loki said again, with the same tone.

Bucky glanced over his shoulder, alert for an incoming attack. "Is it Odin?"

"No. We are perfectly alone."

The way he said the words finally made Bucky realize. His body eagerly responded, turning sweat and violence into another edge. He didn't move.

Loki made a noise of frustration low in his throat. "Would it comfort you to bind my power?"

"Not really," Bucky said, thinking about what Loki had said about Odin sensing him through his magic.

"I see," Loki said, face twisting with bitterness.

Bucky sighed. "Whatever you're thinking, it's not that. I'm more worried about locking you down when we're out here without backup."

Loki shut his eyes and teleported in front of Bucky, and then they were both just as suddenly back beside the curve of the outcrop, shaded from the sun. He reached into Bucky's pocket, pulling free the Stabilizing Beads. "I told you," he said, raising Bucky's hand and slipping the beads over his wrist. "I am not patient."

Cool rock was suddenly at his back, Loki drawing in close at his front. The sound of rushing of blood in his ears competed with the roar of the falls. His prosthetic went up, stopping Loki's advance, gripping in tight to a bicep. But he didn't push him away, and he didn't follow up with the urges his brain was sending to his limbs.

In one of the first moments in as long as Bucky's screwed up and paranoid mind could remember, his body wasn't signaling him to attack.

Loki paused, a smirk tugging at his mouth. He dipped his head down until his face encompassed Bucky's vision, the firefly lights thrashing wildly over their heads. Small pieces of rock crumbled from the wall as it was struck.

Then Loki just...waited.

Bucky breathed heavily, arousal creeping in low and making his cock twitch. He clenched his hand harder into Loki's arm as the seconds passed, feeling like hours, and Loki had said he wasn't patient but Bucky suddenly felt like if he didn't fucking _move_ he was going to scream.

He saw Loki quirk the side of his mouth up, smug.

Bucky hissed out a breath. He moved his prosthetic to the back of Loki's head. "You're a goddamn asshole," he said, before he crushed their mouths together.

Loki laughed into his mouth, suddenly coming back into movement, his hands venturing up to the sides of Bucky's face while Bucky put his hands over lean hips and forced Loki around so he was the one with his back to the wall. Layers of stone crumbled away behind Loki, falling to their feet in gentle clacks of sound. 

Loki kissed and groped and moaned like he hadn't pleasurable contact in _years_ ( _he hasn't_ ), like he was dying for it, barely acknowledging the sting he had to still be feeling from his healing injuries. Bucky tried to stay aware of the worst spots ( _burns on the neck, damaged skin beside the gauntlets, keep your voice low_ ) all the while feeling his own erection send sparks of need trailing through his nerves under hungry skin. He pinned Loki back with the prosthetic gripped into his waist, reaching down with his other hand to palm his cock through the thin material of his pants. Loki gasped and dug his teeth sharply into Bucky's lip, trying to thrust up into the touch while the walls shattered around them with a crack.

Bucky had to put his back into it to keep Loki in place - he had the inkling that if he let go, then Loki would completely overwhelm him.

The thought wasn't necessarily as unappealing as it should have been.

Loki's mouth moved down to Bucky's neck, his hands gripping into his shoulders, and when he tried to stutter his hips forward Bucky used the prosthetic to force him back against the wall. 

"There, Wolf," Loki said with a feral grin, teeth nipping against Bucky's skin and sending a frisson of heat straight down to his cock. "Fight me."

Bucky was happy to oblige, his hand moving up to push away Loki's tunic and rub a hand over his quivering stomach, slowly trailing downwards. Loki moaned like he was in pain and arched, pulling his lips from Bucky's skin to throw his head back as his breath expelled in a rush.

"Is this okay?" Bucky asked, a careful eye on Loki's face as he continuously dragged a slow hand over soft skin to watch him squirm.

"Is it..." Loki laughed, then his brow drew tight with an airless, guttural noise as Bucky brushed against a nipple.

Bucky ran his hand demonstratively downwards, and let a bit of humor seep into his voice. "You're sensitive. Figured this is a lot."

Loki panted, his head coming back forward, his eyes narrowed. "Are you...teasing me?"

Bucky pushed his hand down past the waistband of Loki's pants, his fingers fluttering over a hip and down the inside of a thigh, ignoring the length that jerked taut between them. "Just gauging the best approach."

" _Wolf,_ " Loki snarled, and Bucky lined their bodies up, his prosthetic moving from holding Loki's hip around to his lower back, pulling him close and massaging his fingers firmly into the sacral nerves. 

"Really think you oughta call me Bucky, especially seeing as I'm about to do this." Then he curled his hand around Loki's cock, skin like velvet over steel pressing into his palm. 

Loki seized with a cry, neck arched and pleading and _god,_ he was something else. Bucky felt like he could stand there and watch him react to the changes in pressure and movement from his grasp until the end of time.

He'd been right, though - Loki was achingly sensitive, coherent words leaving him as he flushed and panted and moaned, green lights zipping and crackling in little thunderstorms around their heads. It wasn't long before he was breathing in little hitches through bared teeth, his hands scrabbling for purchase, eventually clawing against Bucky's upper back as he pressed his face into the base of his neck, his magic lashing out at every angle.

It was so good, it was frustrating - difficult to keep up with Bucky's own erection burning for touch, but he was used to focusing through physical discomfort. He ran his grip in steady movements, dragged his nails up the underside of Loki's cock to its head, until the body against him quaked like it was going to fall to pieces, curving inwards like a bow, a constant stream of uneven noises pressed to the inside of Loki's throat.

"Come on," Bucky urged. "That's it." 

He pulled harder, digging his fingers sharply into Loki's lower back, and the noises against his skin reached a long and desperate pitch as the length in his hand pulsed and green light burned his retinas.

Loki slumped against him, air brushing against his neck in gentle puffs as he carefully stroked him through the aftershocks. When Bucky's eyes went to their surroundings, he uttered out a startled laugh.

He felt Loki's lips pull into a frown against his skin. "What?"

"You kind of...vaporized a giant chunk of the wall."

Loki looked around at the gaping space around him, the broken ruin of rock that had crumbled into dust, eyelids lowered and breaths still coming hard. He looked confused.

"It's all right," Bucky said. "I think we're in a remote enough spot from the falls that it won't matter."

Loki brought his eyes back around, his stance slowly shifting into one of determination, lust sparking again. 

"Bucky," he said, "my Wolf, my protector...so patient and considerate." 

He slid to his knees, gaze locked upwards, a twinkle in his eyes that Bucky had never seen before - the effect spreading to the rest of his face, ridding it of its usual bleakness. 

"Remove your clothes," Loki requested, hands sliding over the backs of Bucky's thighs. "Allow me to see to your needs."

Bucky swallowed and nodded, a tingling in his chest starting up and pouring out through his nerves. Loki sat back long enough for Bucky to undress, then with a smirk waved his hand and removed his own clothes with a shimmer of green.

For the first time, Bucky allowed himself to really look. Unburdened by terror or pain, Loki's slender body looked made for grace and strength. His stomach curved inwards, but it and the rest of him had slowly begun to fill, lean and defined muscle packed around the press of his ribs to pale skin. There was a focus, an assuredness in his eyes that he'd previously lacked. 

He tilted his chin with a cocky edge, beckoning, kissing Bucky's erection with worshipful reverence when he drew close, a lingering touch of lips that made him feel both mildly uncomfortable and incredibly aroused. Then a tongue reached out to press against him, and all thoughts of discomfort were gone as Loki opened his mouth, enveloping him in careful suction. The temperature was cooler than expected, but there was still some heat, still warmth to be found in the friction over Loki's tongue.

Bucky had been right about the suspicion that Loki would overwhelm him, hands and mouth working in tandem, pleasure cramping through him in building pressure. He tried to keep his hands loose, gentle where they pressed into black locks, when Loki made a low noise in his throat and drew off of him with a pop.

"You needn't have such care," Loki said, lips already swollen. He reached back for the prosthetic, pressing it harder against his skull. "The very last thing I am is physically fragile."

And _of course_ Loki would have no problem complaining or starting an argument, even now, when just a second before he'd had his mouth full of Bucky's cock. 

Lithe fingers were still working to keep him hard with firm strokes over skin that glistened with saliva. Bucky pulled his prosthetic free and moved it to the hinge of Loki's jaw, pressing his thumb into the underside of his chin, tilting his head back. Loki stared up, eyes darkened with lust and mouth open around heavy breaths. He was gorgeous.

"You want it rough when we're on more equal ground, that's fine," Bucky said, "but I'm not gonna tug you around like a rag doll."

Loki rolled his eyes. "A meaningless distinction."

Bucky ground his jaw, his voice going hard. "It means something to me."

Surprise lit Loki's gaze. He faltered, and his expression lost the flippant edge. "My apologies."

"You don't have anything you need to be sorry for," Bucky said. 

"I do," Loki insisted. "At the very least, for doubting your word time and again." He raised his eyebrows. "Allow me to make it up to you."

Then he dove back down, replacing his hand with his mouth and taking Bucky to the root. Bucky's thoughts disjointed into a stream of curses, his hands in spasm against the back of Loki's head. He groaned, arching into the slick grip of Loki's mouth and throat, the friction over his cock that made him see stars in addition to the green lights that darted around them. The plates on his prosthetic shifted while the muscles in his right arm flexed. Loki was staring up at him, his expression open, rid of the anxiety and dullness that usually plagued it, and between that image and the sudden nearly-unbearable vibration around his cock as Loki moaned Bucky was fucking _gone_.

Bucky slumped, his muscles filled with a pleasing ache, a blissful haze overtaking his mind, draining his tension. God, but he'd needed that. Loki was still on his knees, making sure Bucky was thoroughly cleaned off, looking very pleased with himself.

"C'mere," Bucky said, and then reached down to draw him up, bringing him in for a kiss before he wrapped his arms around Loki's back and tightly embraced him.

Anything to do with that self-satisfied calm vanished in an instant - Loki suddenly stiffened, body strung tight and awkward, magic darting in a frenzy. 

"Wolf," he ground out, voice uncertain.

"It's just a damn hug," Bucky said.

It took a few seconds for Loki to let go, like he was expecting some kind of trap to be sprung the instant he relaxed. Bucky knew there were about a thousand issues between them that made all of this - made _them_ such a fantastically fucking terrible idea. They should be keeping their distance, or at the very least let this be one and done. If Bucky fucked it up, if he couldn't deal, Loki was going to be the one that suffered the most. Bucky had all of Wakanda he could travel. Hell, he could even head out with Steve and his friends, start a new life as a vigilante out in the world.

All Loki really had, was him. And he was still a prisoner of Wakanda. 

But, fuck it. It was good _now,_ in this moment, as Loki finally melted, as he shuddered and lowered his head and brought his hands up to cling into Bucky with sudden vicious intensity, the light of his magic gathering in close around them.

Bucky was going to do what he could. And, whatever came next, day by day, they'd deal with it.


	19. Chapter 19

**Epilogue**

Bucky sat in a chair beside a vibranium table in the room Shuri had specially designed for Loki's visits. The walls were close, but painted the same bright white of the rest of Shuri's lab, giving the illusion of openness, and the dark accents of color that ran through their corners helped lessen their look of sterilized sternness. The air was filled with soothing tones of relaxation music, making Bucky's heartbeat slow through the anxious spikes that drifted in whenever he looked up at Shuri to see her implanting another of her subdermal devices into Loki's hands.

It had taken a lot for Loki to even consider agreeing to this, and he'd worked himself into a state beforehand, alternating between snapping viciously and quiet numbness for two whole evenings and refusing to give Bucky even a hint as to what was wrong. 

It had been frustrating, especially during one point when Loki tried to deflect Bucky's concern by coming on to him, tried to bypass Bucky's ironclad rule about no sex in the hut (or in the bathrooms, or by the river, or anywhere within five miles of occupied areas) by wheedling him at length to release the gauntlets so he could use his magic to create an impenetrable perimeter so no one would walk in on them. Loki's anxiety levels at that point had been far too high for him to even consider venturing outside into open space.

Bucky had told him point-blank that he wasn't risking him destroying the hut just so they could fuck, and something in Loki had broken and given in. The next morning, Bucky had woken up to find Loki awake on his bed with his legs pulled close. He'd asked Bucky to call Shuri.

 _Then_ Bucky had found out that Shuri had sent Loki a rundown of her new stabilizing devices right to his tablet. They were kinder, built not only to restrict his usage of his power minus the discomfort of unyielding metal pressed into his wrists and fingers, but to give him some agency to help him contain it himself. It would allow him to work with it on levels of lowered intensity and not risk reducing the space around him to dust the second he had a heightened emotion.

Anyone with Stabilizing Beads still had priority over the commands for it, and Loki still couldn't venture outside of his radius without getting locked down, but it was as close to non-confinement as he'd ever been in over half a decade. 

When Loki woke from the surgery, he stared at the smooth expanse of his hands, and Shuri had walked him through some of the iterations of intensity for his power levels before he'd been cleared to leave. 

"Any questions you have should have answers outlined in your tablet," Shuri said. "But you may send me a message if you have concerns."

Loki nodded, his expression one of quiet respect and lingering wariness. "Thank you, Princess Shuri."

"Have fun in California," Bucky said as they headed out.

Shuri grinned. "You are sure you don't want me to bring you back some Mickey Mouse ears?"

"If I say no, are you gonna do it anyway?"

She laughed, her smile bright, and then made a gesture as if she was zipping her lips shut.

\------------

After they headed back to the hut, Loki had completely shut down as his stress levels finally calmed. He'd knelt in the center of his bed without seeming to realize that he'd done it, head dipping in exhaustion until Anwuli and Ndidi brought them food. 

Usually Bucky sat with Anwuli outside to hear about her day over dinner, while Ndidi had taken to bringing Loki small gifts - things she'd found while playing with her friends, and things she'd made for him. The wooden caracal had been more than replaced. Loki never looked quite overjoyed at the attention, but he stayed quietly polite towards Ndidi on his good days, and the expressions of pure confusion at each kindness were beginning to lessen.

"He's not gonna be up for much stimulation tonight," Bucky explained as he met them outside the hut. "He's pretty burnt out."

"I understand," Anwuli said. "I made rice stew." She handed him a pair of fragrant bowls. "We will check on both of you again tomorrow."

"Thanks," Bucky said.

Loki ate mechanically but steadily - he had put on a bit more weight, lean muscle filling out his limbs and torso, his enhanced body looking a lot less like he was three degrees away from the appearance of a famine victim. Each night when he was ready to sleep, he would apply his earbuds to block out the world, and curl on his side. 

And Bucky would watch him while outside the nightjars sang and the jackals howled, until his own consciousness faded.

\------------

Bucky woke in the middle of the night to the feeling that something was wrong. His eyes darted to Loki, asleep on his own bed, and then to the cloth door of the hut.

There was a shadow there, in the shape of a man.

Bucky rose, prepping his prosthetic, ready to release Loki. 

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, if I might speak with you. Alone."

Odin.

Bucky looked over to where Loki was deep in sleep. He reluctantly rose and moved the cloth to the door aside, not stepping out of the perimeter of the hut.

Odin wasn't dressed in armor but instead some sort of pale suit, like he was trying to blend in on earth. He wasn't holding any weapons that Bucky could see, but that didn't mean he didn't have them.

"What the hell do you want," Bucky asked. 

Odin looked him over. "So it is true that Loki did not ensorcel you with his magic."

"Yeah. You're telling me you actually considered that was a possibility?"

"Of course," Odin said. "I spoke truthfully when I named him a master manipulator. When Loki and I last met outside of this land, he placed a spell on me that rendered me confused. He put me in a home for elders on this planet."

"Sounds hilarious," Bucky said, straight-faced. "Too bad you had to go and get better."

Odin ignored Bucky's insult. "In time I was able to break free, and return to my home, only to be informed by my subjects that I had evidently taken the throne long enough to dismiss my son Thor from the kingship he would have inherited before traveling to Earth for an important task known only to me. My last known location was the continent of Africa."

"He was dying," Bucky said.

Something flashed in Odin's eyes. "Dying."

"He came here to heal himself. Some kind of poison in his chest. He called it the blood curse."

Odin stilled in sudden attention. "That may be so. But Loki has sought power far beyond his caliber before, and I do not doubt that this fact was why he resorted to seeking out and stealing from these people rather than attempting to receive aid from his home."

Bucky clenched his jaw. "I'm not having this conversation with you."

Odin frowned, his single eye growing angry. "You would not hear me."

"I hear you," Bucky said, just as pissed off. "You don't seem to get it. I'm not here to absolve Loki of anything he did before he went in the ground. That's not my call to make. I'm just here to lend an ear to help him forward." He tapped his fingers against the archway. "And if he managed to overpower you _before_ he enhanced his power with vibranium energy, it's obviously not a good idea to let you watch him, now. Especially since you've made it a hundred percent clear you're not above using his fear against him."

"Such bold words," Odin said. "Do you not believe in imprisonment for people who have committed terrible crimes?"

"You mean like trespassing when the king told you that you weren't allowed here?" Bucky reached for his beads, and all around the hut bright blue-hued lights emerged from the ground, surrounding Odin in a visible force field. The king of Asgard stepped forward, knocking the back of his hand against a wall. Shuri's devices, that ensured the containment of Odin and his power.

Bucky just as soon dissipated the field; the shadows around Odin appeared more prominent in its absence.

"Go," Bucky said. "Get the hell out of here. I don't want Loki to see you."

Odin stared at Bucky, his pale blue eye unblinking. "When it is my time," he said, "I will send a message, so you may prepare."

Bucky scowled. "Prepare for what?"

Odin turned away. "That is a tale for someone who would wish to hear it. Goodbye, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes."

Then Odin was gone.

Bucky stared out into the dark. His anger felt like it was going to tear a hole in his throat.

 _What a fucking_ dick.

Bucky grimaced, backing into the hut, trying not to remember the feeling of the press of metal and his lungs burning in his chest.

He would try to get a message out to Steve and the others later. He shouldn't have run Odin off before receiving more details. He'd been sloppy, again.

But just about then he didn't give a damn.

He turned, and froze when he noticed Loki was awake, his earbuds loose in his hand.

Bucky rolled his shoulder, trying to loosen the last of his tension. "Heard that, huh?"

"Yes." Loki sat up. "I suddenly find myself not quite so tired."

Bucky ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry."

Loki lowered his eyes. "May we go somewhere? Far enough that you would consider..."

The unspoken word was loud and clear. Bucky sighed. "This isn't a self-destructive stress thing, is it?"

"Not entirely," Loki said. "I find the sound of you defending me so stalwartly to be... _very_ pleasing."

Bucky folded his arms. "Odin left literally two minutes ago. If he's checking for you using your power, he'll know when we move."

"He is no match for us," Loki reminded.

"I'm not worried about our chances of beating him, I just don't want him walking in on..." Bucky made a helpless gesture.

Loki grinned. "But it would be so very funny."

"Not quite my idea of a good time," Bucky said.

Loki rose from his bed, sauntering forward. "It has been days. I should have a chance at testing what the princess has created."

"Or we could wait until a reasonable hour," Bucky said, but he was already giving in, swallowing hard, hand drifting to his Stabilizing Beads.

"Come, Wolf - _Bucky_." Loki reached up and encouraged Bucky's hand to press over the beads. "I would not waste this period of lightness. Allow me this chance to mock the universe. To feel."

Bucky released Loki's power, the green glow reflecting off the walls of their hut. The resulting smile of satisfaction he received was an image he experienced only infrequently, and hell if it didn't send Bucky's body tingling.

He removed his Stabilizing Beads. Loki reached down and laced his fingers through metal, bringing a hand up to the back of Bucky's neck and kissing him with impassioned fervor.

Bucky twitched his prosthetic, giving Loki the smallest zap in irritation at his willful disregard of the rule he'd set. The lips against his stretched into a grin.

The world winked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap!
> 
> There's a sequel planned, but I will be taking at least a few weeks off from posting fic to start writing it and hopefully some plotless ficlets. 
> 
> As always, I am on [tumblr,](http://anamelessdragon.tumblr.com) you can check there for notes about any sort of fic progress and possibly fic excerpts, for this verse and upcoming others. (And a large amount of reblogged marvel gifsets and pet photos.)


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